


A New World Dawns

by butterflycollective



Category: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Apocalypse, Gen, Near Future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 62
Words: 114,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflycollective/pseuds/butterflycollective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place a few months after the end of "Rise of the Apes" as mankind struggles to survive and apes  try to rule. Just borrowing the characters for fun and added some original ones as well as those from other "Apes" movies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The plague started out like a whisper.

But soon enough, it spread around the globe, from one victim to another. A viral chain letter gone amok.

By then, the man responsible for creating the deadly germ had been buried by those who were left to mourn him before they'd need to buy more plots as the disease spread.

It hadn't been an act of malice that had led to the demise of the dominant species on the planet, but the best of intentions gone horribly wrong. That's what she thought as she put the words to paper about the man she had loved so briefly. Not that he could reciprocate because the research that had cost him his life had consumed it before those last breaths.

In the arms of his creation who had gathered an army and began his conquest of first one city and then the world, until the last vestiges of mankind had been wiped off the face of the earth. But like all plagues, it left survivors. Those individuals with some genetic quirk favored by the process of natural selection that afforded them some immunity….meaning that if they got sick, they might recover. But not remain entirely the same.

Her mind felt fuzzy some days but not because she had been infected. The virus had skipped over her entirely. Even as she had labored from sunrise to sunset treating scores of patients because most of the licensed doctors had already died. Some had dropped dead not long after pronouncing another patient dead. They gently closed the eyes of a child still holding onto her teddy bear and then walked outside to quietly die.

No one knew where the plague had originated. Whispers had started soon after that it had flown in from China, on the back of a migrating bird, or a pig that had been shipped in from South America. The media launched forth a conspiracy theory or two until the last news anchor died at his desk. And after that, the whispers stopped and the dying continued.

But she knew.

She knew where the virus had come from, that it was kin to that which had been to the apes. The ones who had gotten smart just before they had taken over the world. Evolution had fast forwarded to where they had reached the level of humans and just as Cro Magnons had emerged and killed off Neanderthals, the apes had gone after the humans.

Still some like her survived but very few existed now who knew the truth. That's why she had taken to keeping a diary to leave behind when she was gone so that those who remained and struggled to live would at least learn from one man's mistake.

Her epitaph to the rest of the world including her unborn child so they would know.

She had joined up with a group of others who had remained unscathed from the plague that had proceeded to wipe the world clean of their kind. She didn't tell anyone her real name lest they learn how close she had been to the one who ended the world or at least radically changed it for the foreseeable future. So she kept to herself once she had treated her last patient.

Her current accommodations were a shack out in the desert near a ghost town that had actually been deserted a century or so before the plague. A group of them remained cloistered there, not that they ever remained in one place for long. None of them wanted to be caught by some band of mercenary type apes looking for some easy exchange. Human slaves were always needed not that there were many left. Mostly to clean up after the dead, to address the stench of rotting bodies mostly in the largest cities.

Another reason why she and other wandering bands of humans stuck to the remote areas, the air remained fresh and if any of the virus remained on its breath, it wouldn't harm those who were left.

A broad shouldered man with wavy dark hair named Burke walked up to her, dressed in dark clothing and packing a gun. She looked up at him, and saw that he bore a plate of food. What looked like fried rattler and some type of wild leeks or onions that had been growing alongside a jagged creek that led to some larger river further away.

"Eat…"

She took the plate and nodded. Burke hadn't been a man of many words at least since she knew him but he was incredibly strong, having worked outdoors most of his life. He did most of the laborious jobs when they set up camp and taught the others how to set up traps for food. Digging into the meet of what must have been an impressive diamond back snake, she found that hunger made just about any food palatable. She doubted the baby inside of her would complain.

"So how long are we here," she asked.

He poured her some of that cactus juice he had whipped up with ingredients whose names she didn't wish to know.

"Until tomorrow…"

He sat down next to her and just watched her eat. The morning sickness hadn't been anything but an inconvenience in the face of what humanity faced but her appetite had returned.

"They like the rain forests better than the desert," she said, "That's why their stronghold's in the north-west."

He nodded.

"But as their population grows they will spread out like weeds," he said, "And soon enough, they'll figure out airplanes and they'll be able to travel around more easily."

Ah, she knew that would only be a matter of time. They had enslaved some remaining pilots who had survived to teach them how to fly. Not many had, because due to the nature of their professions, many of them had been the earliest vectors for the plague. Then when flight was mastered, the apes would be able to move about the world, increasing their hold on it.

The plague might be winding down, the deaths it caused mere whispers in the wind but the next stage of the conquest, what had been called revolution, would begin.

Caesar sighed as he sat in front of the television cameras in some deserted studio in what had once been Seattle. Some orangutans were fiddling with the cameras which had been covered in dust for weeks before they began working on them. The news teams were long dead, some in the break room scattered on the floor but a straggling group of humans had been put to work under the whip to fix them. Not that Caesar himself favored such methods but some of his lieutenants insisted that what had been done to their kind would be done to those who had enslaved them.

And Caesar had so much on his plate with instituting this new world where apes dominated that he had learned to pick his battles. But watching the orangutans experimenting with different camera angles sent him to the office where a gorilla aide of his awaited.

Speech still eluded all but him but sign language had been easy enough to teach to them until the day when their vocal abilities would evolve with the rest of them. He could say a few sentences, each phrase more of a struggle than the preceding one. But they had to figure out a way to learn speech so to be less reliant on using their hands.

The aide, named Urko gazed up at him.

"When ready cameras?"

Caesar shrugged because he didn't know. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week but it would happen. He often thought of the past several months since the revolt had taken place in San Francisco, the city that raised him. He had grown up believing himself a human child until he realized he was something else entirely. His human father had tried to protect him from society, he knew that now and had ultimately laid down his life to save his as the revolt wound down. Caesar and the other apes had hid in the depths of the forest outside San Francisco, the same one he had explored during simpler times awaiting their next move.

They had believed it would be decided for them through some large-scale attack by the humans but that hadn't happened. Instead, the humans had started dying. Being isolated, it took a while for him to figure out that a plague had been unleashed from the same laboratory where apes had first gotten smart.

He didn't feel much about that except that it made their revolution that much easier. Humans hadn't been anything more than people who exploited and hurt his kind except…

He closed his eyes. No, he couldn't think about his human father or grandfather, who had raised him. The few others who had taken care of him, whose fates remained unknown…he had left San Francisco as the revolution expanded outward like the ripples which had been caused by a boulder falling into a lake. He had mourned the loss of his female consort and had hooked up with a chimpanzee named Alisa who softened his rougher edges.

Through her, he would realize his own family separate from the larger one with the apes. The conquest of the world had nearly ended and they were using their human slaves to educate them in the uses of the technological devices and toys left discarded by a dying race. Humankind was on its descent into extinction and apes would be the dominant life force to replace them. A much needed step up in evolution, born of revolution.

Life would begin anew and it would be grand in this new world.


	2. Chapter 2

Three months earlier….

Caesar sat on the top of the redwood tree that morning. His prehensile feet gripping the trunk allowing him to fall asleep over 100 feet off the ground if he chose to do so.

But he remained awake, looking for any encroaching armies that might be using the covering of that darkness before dawn to launch a secret attack.

They had thwarted two attacks already but in the past week, it had grown eerily quiet in the forest. Although he led the revolutionary movement, he insisted on doing his share of the growing workload which meant surveillance detail. So he had left his lieutenants some hours ago to climb up the tree.

But the attacks never resumed, and soon he'd be sending in some scouts to San Francisco which had lit up the horizon with the reddish shade of orange and yellow glow which signaled the fires that had been set several days ago dying out. He had been mystified by the appearance of the expanding halo of flames but they had opted to remain in the forest and watch from a distance. He tried not to think too much of his past or remained very selective in his memories. Focusing instead on the worst of his treatment by the humans, like Dodge for example to stoke the embers of his rage towards them.

Rather than remembering the kinder treatment he had received from one family of two men, a father and a son who both had left this earth after radically changing it. His human father Will had reset the deck between apes and humans by his genetic research to cure his father's ailment. But ended up destroying his own kind instead and what was left of it would only serve to work under the yoke of apes like him. Humans just weren't good for anything else, he told himself and when the images of Will and his father, and the female scientist he had know crept into his thoughts, he pushed them aside quickly.

He had to remain hardened and keep honing his skills as a revolutionary leader prodding his charges into a new era where they'd be able to stake their place in it at the top of the chain. It wouldn't be overnight, not in a world of billions of the life forms they would replace but it would be done.

He sighed as he realized that the sun would rise soon so he nimbly shimmied down the tree and swung through the branches, not as good as the monkeys who served as their messengers but well, as good as any chimpanzee.

No, as good as any ape. They had to dispense with the separate titles for each other designating species. They were all the same, all equal, chimpanzee, orangutan and gorilla.

Some bonobos had dropped by their settlement two days ago and tried to tell them how it was going to be but they had rebuffed their attempts to place themselves at the top. The smallish versions of chimpanzees eschewed all forms of violence choosing to negotiate their terms…through some rather interesting means. But this was not a peaceful revolution, but one where blood had been shed.

His own would have been a month earlier if it hadn't been for Will. His human father had searched the familiar territory of the forest of his earlier years to try and find him, not knowing he was being followed himself by an attack squad. But he'd taken the gunfire meant for Caesar losing his own life. Caesar had made sure he had been left where the humans could find him.

Caesar jumped the remaining feet to the ground in front of Charron and Alisa the newer female.

He signed to them.

"What you find city?"

They glanced at each other and then Charron nodded.

"All dead…streets empty."

Caesar had heard similar accounts in recent days but figured that they were holed up somewhere planning a new offensive against the apes.

"They gone."

Maybe, Caesar thought, but he decided they'd wait until they had more signs of what had happened. He needed to find some way to communicate with others of his kind that he knew existed out there. So that they could launch similar revolutions and find freedom…and never see the inside of a cage again.

One month ago…

She woke up, her vision blurry until it came gradually into focus. She had heard two voices talking but when she looked up, she saw a pair of brown eyes looking down at where she lay.

Her muscles felt cramped and she could barely move, her mouth parched. She wanted some water desperately. As if reading her mind, the man sitting by her reached for a pitcher and poured her a glass.

She tried to lift herself up to drink it and he helped her. It felt cool if not cold and slid down her throat in a way that refreshed. But she knew it wouldn't be enough for long. She felt as if she were in the middle of a desert.

The man she had dreamed about, she knew was gone forever. But in her dreams, he had been alive and they'd been walking in the forest where the trees disappeared as you looked up at them, into the heavens. He had been calling for Caesar who had run off again, off leash. They had argued over removing it, and she sighed remembering that the world had changed.

The apes had gotten smart. They had grouped under Caesar's leadership and had wrecked much of San Francisco.

But it had been the plague which followed that killed most of its people. The bodies had started to pile up at the hospitals after less than a month as the virus swept through the city barely allowing a window of time when it could be isolated let alone identified. Even as she treated people with her limited medical skills, she knew where it had come from, the laboratory that had given birth to Caesar. Something that Will had been working on, before his death at the hands of his own kind.

When he had run into the dense forest to find Caesar and hadn't returned.

Neither had the army and they realized quickly enough that they had all been killed by the apes. But if they hadn't, the plague would have gotten them soon enough. She had spent the past month constantly moving with some people, who lived, or died or split up into other confused migrating groups. No one knew what to do in the earliest moments of the apocalypse.

She had just kept busy, eating very little as the food either rotted at the grocery stores or markets or had remained untouched. The disease had claimed its victims too quickly to create enough of a panic to send the city's residents rushing to stores to clear the shelves while stocking up.

What had finally gotten to her she didn't know, she just remembered being too tired to even move and then she must have collapsed. At first she thought the virus had finally breached her defenses and had come to claim her. She had been ready at that point, as most of the people she had known, she had worked with, loved had been wiped off the face of the now changing earth. Society teetered on the edge of collapse and she feared what would replace it.

But she hadn't died. She didn't know why but she didn't remember much of those days that stretched out into weeks, where she lay while she decided to join others like Will and his father.

Or to remain alive as everything she knew deteriorated around her. But in the midst of it, she'd heard a soft voice, its timbre bass and felt the strength of someone's hand in her own. Someone calling her back from someplace that awaited her.

She didn't know why she didn't die but she did remember opening her eyes and seeing the sturdiness of the man sitting next to her, his face highlighted by more than a hint of shadow. She reached up faintly with one hand to touch him.

"You're not him…"

The man smiled.

"No I guess not," he said, "I'm Burke…I've been taking care of you since you took sick."

So that's why she felt weak, almost as if she had nothing inside her but jello, and her muscles felt sore like she'd been hit by a truck. Her mind felt fuzzy like had happened to the handful of people who had survived the virus but then it slowly grew clearer.

"It's not…"

He shook his head.

"No it wasn't the virus," he agreed, "It was an entirely different breed of flu but you're better now."

She didn't feel like it but maybe she would as time passed. But then suddenly in a moment of clarity, she remembered the man in front of her and made a face, albeit weakly.

"You…"

He smiled again.

"Yes it's me," he said, "The guy you tore a new one in the other day and you were half right."

"What?"

He stroked her brow, where some strands of hair had dried during her illness.

"Later…now you need to get some rest," he said, "We'll talk again when you're stronger."

She nodded and then closed her eyes again. This time her sleep had been seamless, unbroken by dreams.

She looked back at her illness as inevitable, you couldn't keep the hours on the move as she had been doing and not pay the price. But it hadn't been the lethal brand of flu that had taken so many lives. She didn't know why it hadn't struck at her But then there had been a few others like her who had worked in labs with animals who hadn't taken ill either. Some of them had since been killed or enslaved by apes they had encountered while fleeing.

After finishing her breakfast, she headed off towards the main dwelling where a strategic meeting would take place. She had been instrumental because she had anticipated moves by the apes. They just didn't know about her close ties to Caesar or his family while he grew up.

They didn't need to know her ties to the man whose actions to save his father had doomed humanity.

But looking up at Burke as he waited for her, slipping his arm around her shoulder, she wondered how long she could keep her own identity hidden in a world that had drastically changed forever. A lot of identities had been wiped clean, maybe hers would be as well.

Hers and that of the baby she carried inside her.


	3. Chapter 3

She worked hard after she told him her name. Not her real one, but Reese just slipped off of her tongue when he had asked. They had been inventorying supplies at one of the earlier camps.

The kind that could be packed up and left behind at moment's notice…if the spotters saw any signs of the apes. But as they moved east away from the coastal cities, they had seen fewer and fewer signs of any of them. She guessed they were sticking to a few hot spots in what was left of America, until they were able to figure out how to travel more easily.

Burke hadn't said much to her at first, but she read the strength etched quietly on his face, his body built like a sturdy tree. Only she saw how quickly he could move when necessary.

She'd been too busy to notice much of anything up to the moment she had fallen sick. But now that she had been getting her strength back, she could do more to pitch in with the increasing workload. They had hit a couple deserted chemists and pharmacies to grab medication before it hit its expiration date. The more perishable medication they had to leave behind because they didn't have reliable refrigeration, given that most of the time they used generators because electricity was spotty. She guessed that the apes would strong arm some electrician into getting the grid back on again in some of the major cities hit.

The sun caressed them with its warmth before it would feel like a blow torch before mid-afternoon. Their shelters weren't air conditioned but they found ways to keep them less than stifling hot.

"So you ready to pack some things?"

She turned and looked up at Burke shielding her eyes from the sun.

"Why…I thought we were staying."

He shook his head.

"We're breaking up into splinter groups and ours is heading to Canada."

She hadn't heard that but it made some sense. The country north of America had been devastated by the plague like everywhere else but the apes had focused their conquest on America and even down into Mexico and Central America. Gravitating to the warm humidity of the rain forests perhaps…after all, winter would be coming soon. The first on the continent that most of humanity wouldn't see.

Just realizing that again made her throat tighten…just a year ago she had reunited with Will and they had gotten together. At least as much as anyone could get close to the geneticist. Ideological differences on the whole idea of the research that consumed his waking life had created friction at times but she had loved him.

Back several months ago, as they stood at the head of the redwood forest outside of San Francisco, he had made a choice. The welfare of the chimpanzee he had raised like a son and because he had known that the chaos breaking out around them had been a result of his own arrogance. Not just that, but his lifelong yearling to be close to his ailing father, the greatest man he had ever known.

She got up and went to her shelter to gather the few things she had left. Her photo of him and the ape in that same forest…her parents who were likely deceased now. She kept them carefully hidden, as reminders of a world that no longer existed. A couple other road weary men worked outside the shelter.

"I don't think going to Canada's going to make any difference," the first said, "Those damn apes will enslave it like everywhere else."

"Well we can't go back to Cali because have you heard how they treat their slaves?"

The first man laughed bitterly.

"Payback's a bitch and that's the way it's always been," he said, "the slaves rise up against their master and the tables are turned."

"If we could just access a couple of nukes, we could end their little reign."

She sighed listening to that line coming up as it often did, destroy every form of life in an area within seconds and render it inhabitable for generations to eradicate the apes. Not that it would work, for all they know, the apes already controlled the nukes.

"That damn scientist should be hung for what he did," the first one ranted, "He destroyed us all."

"You don't know that," the other countered, "The apes yes, but we don't know where the plague came from."

Oh, but she did, not that she would ever tell anyone that it had originated from the same corner that had been responsible for the evolution of the apes.

"Besides he's dead," the second man continued, "He's probably better off than having to live with what he did to all of us."

She wanted to say something then about the man she had known, that he had only done his research to help people fight a disease that slowly snuffed out everything good inside of them rendering them empty shells until saved by death.

But she remained quiet, just moving on, wondering not for the first time, what she would tell her baby about his or her father in a world where its survivors would demonize him.

After all, history could only be written by those who survived long enough to decide it.

Caesar looked over at Armando who had just whipped one of the slaves to work harder on the power grid. Seattle had been flickering at night when they arrived and they had found a small cluster of people holed up inside one of the power plants. So they had rounded them up, then explained to them how it would go.

Knowing how to read and write, Caesar had used a generator to power up an old copier to allow him to distribute sheets of the new order to the newly enslaved. They just held onto them, their faces dazed as they tried to read it. Those who had survived the virus had in many cases been left less than razor sharp though the smaller number of immunes they had encountered began to downplay their intelligence. He knew that because he had done it so many times himself while growing up in a world which would provide hostile to an ape who was brighter than most humans.

The slave cowered after Armando, a hulking gorilla hit him several times and then his head bowed, returned to fixing the grid with several other people who had learned enough about the complexities of a utility system in order to survive. The gorillas had used the remaining humans as target practice in the lot out back, the pop, pop, pop of their shotguns echoing through the air, increasing the work pace of the slaves.

Caesar detested violence, and believe it only necessary in self-defense but he'd put those beliefs aside because the gorillas and most of the other chimpanzees were rampant in their exercise of mauling humans before they learned that guns did the job much more efficiently.

The pack of bonobos who hung on the fringes of the group had urged that the apes use other means like negotiation to get what they wanted from the humans but the others laughed at them.

Caesar didn't because he know that this subspecies of ape would prove to be the most intelligent of all of them. Being much more advanced and responding much more readily to the serum that had changed the brains forever of any ape who was exposed to it. When the revolution achieved its goals and they got their new social order up and running, he was sure the rampant violence would stop.

During quieter moments, he thought about the family that raised him, when he had used violence to protect Will and his father. That's what had led to him being ripped away from them and sent to that hateful facility owned by another father and son. He realized now how hard Will had tried to get him away from there but fate had its own plans for him he knew now.

He was meant to lead the apes into rising up against their masters. It wasn't worthwhile to think about any of the other paths his life could have taken. Even Will's death had served a purpose to keep him alive even as he had mourned the only father he ever knew. He had actually watched from afar, hidden in the bushes when they had buried him in the cemetery with a small cluster of people in attendance. The female scientist had been there, dressed in black with several other people who had worked with him. Will hadn't had many friends because he'd been so wrapped up in his research but in the end, it didn't matter given how many people had died just in the past few months.

Armando whipped the slave again and this time the man fell on the ground, injured. Caesar sighed, because if they lost this one, they'd have to find a replacement and that would take time.

So when the gorilla raised his hairy hand to whip him again, this time he intervened.

"Hey Reese," a man's voice called.

It took her a moment to respond because she hadn't yet grown used to her new name. But she did finally and saw Burke heading towards her.

"You ready to go?"

She rubbed her abdomen and nodded. If he noticed her unconscious action, he didn't say anything while she walked with him towards the off-road vehicle that they would use to travel up north, across a decrepit border. It would be about six of them but Burke had said others would be up there too. He had grown up in a rustic town up in the mountains in Canada so it would be almost like returning home, only in a different world. She had grown up half a world away and hadn't been home, had always planned to go back and visit family there.

Now she would never have the chance and…she had so much to tell them. And no one left to listen.

But Burke had been a rock for her especially during her illness and afterward. She knew very little about him or his life before everything changed but then again, no one talked much about the past.

Unless they hit a stash of some pretty strong stuff to numb them first.

They took one last look before they got inside the vehicle that hopefully would power them at least as far as the next place they could siphon more fuel.

Then they drove away without looking back.


	4. Chapter 4

The small caravan to Canada moved slowly, just several cars eking their way through deserted roads. Not much stood in their path because people had died too quickly to flee anywhere but the largest cities.

Not that leaving the epicenters of the plague accomplished much because the disease had already spread like wildfire through dried brush. Reese had nursed her own colleagues through the illness including the state of dementia as best as she could do before the last one had died. It had erupted so quickly that it stopped any attempts to treat it right in their tracks let alone come up with a vaccine.

They had stopped at several deserted towns on the way, their streets barren, the air so still you could probably hear someone sneeze from the opposite side of town. But they heard nothing except the wind rustle the leaves in the trees before tugging them gently off the limbs.

Reese and Burke had led the caravan of the six of them and each stop, they hoped to pick up more people but if anyone still survived, they hid carefully away from anyone passing through. There were no signs of the apes' presence because they still hadn't migrated yet. Their progression would be slow because even though the rebellion had spread, the growth of awareness among their ranks, the kind born of supreme intelligence lagged behind. It might take them a generation or two to fully realize their potential and even longer, to establish their own civilization in the ashes of the one that had preceded it.

Literally ashes in some cases because a couple of the towns had been burned, probably through fires started to dispose of contaminated bodies quickly, but somehow they spread with the wind. Her own heart ached when she saw these towns, but less and less as time went on. It didn't do any good for her to feel for what had been lost anymore.

It was all gone forever. Soon not even the memories would remain of the species that dominated the globe for over a million years. Not if they didn't somehow stop their numbers from dwindling off further. It wasn't clear yet if the flu survivors had been rendered sterile, which would be a cruel joke. But the immunes like her might still be able to propagate. In fact, as she rubbed her abdomen some of them had already gotten started before the world changed. She wondered what Will would think if he knew that in a matter of months there'd be a child like him. The last time she had seen him in the forest, she hadn't known so there hadn't been anything to tell him.

Would she have done so to keep him from rushing into the woods, where he'd never leave? Would her news been enough? No, she knew it wouldn't have stopped him from confronting Caesar to stop him, but it really had been to save him. Because the intelligent chimpanzee had been his child, the only one he would ever raise and he had believed at the end that he'd done poorly at that.

Burke looked over at her from the driver's seat. She had been gazing out the window at the scenery going by. She could tell by the trees, they were getting further north, closer to the border they'd cross leaving what was left of America.

"We're going to stop in Crescent Ridge for the night," he said.

She nodded. They would need to find gas there because the last couple towns hadn't left them with enough to use. But she had been relieved because she still felt tired easily both from the aftermath of the flu and from her pregnancy, no doubt. They'd find an empty motel on the edge of town, hopefully downwind from the dead in their homes. They had brought camping supplies because the stench in some of the towns from rotting carcasses and sewage leaks had been too bad to venture closer.

"How's Raven?"

Burke sighed.

"She's getting by without her meds," he said, "but the hydration will only help so much."

She sighed, feeling concerned about the older woman they had picked up from an abandoned town in the Sierras as they had passed through into the desert.

"Maybe we can hit the stores and find some more water," she said, "if we can move in."

"There's a stream nearby and if we boil the water first, we should be fine," he said, "and we have containers."

That they did for them and for their vehicles. The weather had grown much more temperate than the desert which had been a relief to everyone but the nights would soon grow nippier as the summer continued to fade away. A memory flashed before her of her and Will in a park attending some concert. They had brought a box lunch and had sat on a blanket as the breeze blew from the ocean to relieve what had been an unseasonably hot day. She hadn't been a huge fan of San Francisco but after getting together with Will, he had set forth to change her mind by showing her all the sights including places he had been while growing up.

That had been when she learned about an older brother who had died and suddenly, she understood him.

She blinked her eyes finding them damp again and turned towards the window so Burke wouldn't see. She kept her feelings hidden from everyone around her because that's what everyone did to survive during the hard days. But she supposed that at night, that's when they escaped their imprisonment and were full bloom. He wondered if that were true about the man beside her. Many women would call him very handsome, in a more rugged way like his ancestors had settled the wild west or some hostile environment and built their own more orderly world. But the men who had attracted her, it hadn't been about looks but about smarts and about trying to make a difference in the world. Will had tried his entire professional life to do that but he had started fiddling with the fundamental rules of nature.

Rules which weren't made to be broken not without severe consequences…

"When we get there, we'll cook up some of the vegetables we found and get some canned goods," he said, "Anything that's protein and then we'll settle in for the night."

Burke had stayed with her the entire trip. He explained it by telling her she had nearly died and still needed someone to look over her. She almost laughed when she remembered how it had been between them when they had met. Two people who likely never would have crossed paths if…

No, she couldn't think about what would have been or not, only about the present and although she'd never admit it, she needed someone to stay with her because although she survived the grueling days, the nights left her staring into the darkness with too many memories.

She nodded at him as they kept traveling, thinking it sounded like a plan.

Alisa looked up at Caesar after he had handed her some fruit to eat. She signed back that she wanted bananas. But Caesar hated them, he'd eat any other fruit but them. They had found a couple of orchards up in Oregon and Washington so they had human slaves pick the fruit until the day they dropped and then moved it up to where Caesar and his lieutenants who remained had set up base camp.

The issue of slaves plagued Caesar, not the moral quandaries of such a practice but the fact that the plague had weakened so many humans, both physically but also mentally. Given enough time, the changing of the seasons, how many would be left? The gorillas also enjoyed beating them too much and Caesar found that such punishment actually lowered work productivity rather than increased it.

Not to mention lowering the life expectancy of the slaves.

Alisa had been his consort for the past month and he enjoyed her company, though he missed Cornelia who hadn't survived the revolution. She had died instead of him but he had lost other comrades and mourned them all. Not that he had much time to do that because revolutions created so much work to do even after the conquering had been done. They had to set up a new society where apes ruled and where the different species of apes could work together in harmony without fracturing their ties. In the beginning, they had been strongly united with the shared goal of liberating themselves from their human masters. But after that was done, they started to splinter into their separate camps once again and he had to find creative ways to thwart that.

The arrival of the bonobos who viewed themselves as superior to everyone else had angered the gorillas and the orangutans more than Caesar's own kind. He had thought at the first communal meeting that the lead gorilla would grab the lead bonobo (if there was such a thing) and toss him out of the chamber. But Caesar had a gift of uniting even warring parties and he reminded them that the humans though weak and broken down were still out there and could rise again if they weren't careful.

"Banana want I"

Caesar looked at Alisa with reproach.

"No bananas"

She just looked down dejected and he went over to soothe her before they moved to their sleeping quarters. Once they settled down in more permanent headquarters he wanted her to create progeny for him, as reproduction remained imperative for the apes because their overall numbers had been reduced over the past several hundred years by hunting, imprisonment and environmental destruction. The other apes went happily along with that securing mates and he knew that soon the next generation of apes would be born.

He wanted one from his new family.

His old human family had died, and he still remembered them at times when the world stilled enough for him to do so. Will had vexed him during a part of their lives but had saved him at the end. He had a choice to make between Caesar and humanity and he'd chosen the ape he'd raised. Caesar hadn't understood that at all, how a human could sacrifice his life for an ape even the man who had raised him. But before he died, Will had asked him a favor and Caesar wrestled with it.

Away from the other apes because a part of him still felt that humanity might have its own place in the world. Blasphemy to those around him, but not all mankind had been cruel to the apes.

But it was just idle thought in relation to encroaching memories because he still had a revolution to lead, a society to build.


	5. Chapter 5

He practiced his speaking skills every morning but it proved to be a laborious process, but somehow if he was going to turn to the visual media for progress reports on the revolution, he'd have to keep practicing.

Signing worked until then but his sentence structure remained fragmented. But the other apes were still further behind than he had evolved. He had learned to sign from humans including the one who raised him, but speech he had picked up from watching those around him. He found old recordings that he'd listen to including some found at a building filled with books called a library. Will had gone there to get him books to read, first those with many pictures and then with words. Large sized ones at first but they had gotten smaller.

The female scientist had marveled at the speed of his learning but it had come naturally to him although it wasn't until later that he understood why when Will had tried to explain his origins to him including the truth about his mother. Will hadn't known it at the time but that had sparked the seed of the future revolution when Caesar learned there was something out there vaster than the cramped attic where he had spent his formative years living. He walked over to the place in his office where he stored the things he carried with him including the only piece he had of his past with the humans.

But it hadn't been meant for him. He sighed as he remembered what he had been asked in a man's dying breath. The frenetic pace of building a new society to improve on the decaying one had taken all of his energy and Alisa had fretted at night when they were alone, that he'd given himself to it and hadn't left any of himself for her.

He tried to explain but when he started to sign, she'd just shake her head and walk away, saying that the bonobos she had run into that day had told her they needed to find different ways to communicate. He had heard enough about that subspecies already that eschewed warfare but now that it was winding down, they wanted a bigger piece of the pie when it came to making decisions about the future.

Some footsteps interrupted him.

He looked up and saw Armando coming in carrying his whip.

"Need apes more…"

"Why?"

"Human bad escape caught punish."

"He dead?"

Caesar knew he had to ask. Armando's expression gave him his answer. He sighed knowing that at this rate, there wouldn't be enough slaves to do the clearing out of the dead bodies so that the air would smell crisp and clean again like in the forest. Some squad of apes down in what had been Texas had set up a television station but hadn't yet been able to broad cast anything, a messenger told them. Communication was still painfully slow but if they could master speech…they might be able to get the ham radios back online. Mendel an orangutan who had joined them several weeks ago turned out to be an expert on them learning from having lived with a man who had been a buff.

Caesar needed his help. He needed more slaves and not beaten to death for not working fast enough. Maybe these bonobos would help them come up with ways to get more work out of the weakened humans without raising the body count.

Something to think about anyway…but so many thoughts clouded his mind these days, decisions that had to be made. Many on the spot, Alisa fretted about the effect it had on him but there was no other alternative.

The revolution needed a leader and since he had started it, he had been assumed it. Nothing to do but work in and out each day and night to move them forward. Most of the world had been left to them after the plague had claimed most of humanity.

They would do much better than the landlords who had left it to them. He'd make sure of that.

She woke up inside her tent that they had set up just outside of a town that still remained cloaked in the stench of its dead. They had made it as far as a decrepit 7-11 before they felt nausea overwhelm them. She had vomited not knowing whether it had been morning sickness or the noxious odor. But they had gotten canned baked beans and crackers to eat that night over a low fire, in a meadow that revealed an explosion of rabbits. Burke and a couple of the men had made short work of two of them adding them to the meal.

After spending her days traveling or working to forage for food or supplies they needed, including gasoline to siphon for their vehicles, she fell in her sleeping bag inside her tent or the occasional real bed exhausted. But sleeping proved difficult because her mind remained so filled with her old life She pushed it away just like everyone else did so she could survive each day and not do what they all wanted to do which was to curl up in a ball and just wait for eventual death. They watched each other closely for any signs of despair etched so deeply it would drive them to take matters in their own hand. Earlier on, she had awaken to gunshots and had found that their traveling party had just grown smaller. She couldn't blame them, everything they had known in their lives, their families, their homes, had been erased and the survivors were left to wander around to make sense of a world drastically changed. She felt despair deeply in her marrow some mornings from the time she awakened. She ached for what she had lost, her family that she had always meant to visit but had been too busy with work, the city which had become her home and the man who she missed so much even when she saw him in her dreams.

She'd waken up with dried tears on her face and she knew she wasn't the only one. But they had all learned how to hold in their grief because one second away from focusing on survival would be their last. She had her chance when the flu had seized her and she knew it had nearly taken her life. Vestiges of memories where she had been at a crossroads with her on one side, and her family and Will on the other, she had wanted so badly to take that first step towards those who she had lost.

But she had chosen life instead or something inside of her had made that choice for her. And that had been the baby growing inside of her. She had to somehow navigate this strange and frightening world for him or her. She saved her nights for missing the old world and focused her days on building a new one from the ashes.

The apes had been building their own civilization. The remaining humans had to claim their stake of what they had lost. But for now, they had to do it quietly, under the radar of the apes. Those who hadn't done so were either dead or enslaved at their hands.

Caesar led the revolution, she knew that. He'd done it back on the bridge in old San Francisco and he did it still because he had been a leader in training all the time she had known him. And the humans who raised him had given him those skills he needed without even knowing.

Will had given his life for him and a part of her hated him for that. He could have survived if he hadn't gone running in the forest to find Caesar and he had been killed by his own kind.

"Hey you up yet?"

She looked up to see Burke's head ducked in her tent. She smiled up at him, pulling her sleeping bag closer to her.

"Yeah…I guess it's time to get started, get on the road again."

"I'll get you some breakfast."

And like that, he left her. She furrowed her brows at his attitude towards her. He'd taken care of her when she'd been sick and since she had been recovering, getting stronger every day he had done the same. She knew him to be a strong man handling most of the leadership with her help and she had discovered he could do about anything except talk about his past.

But then with few things left to cherish, the past had become something to hold close and protect for most people. Her past with those who had shaped it including the ape who had led the conquest of humanity…though mankind had destroyed itself. By setting loose the killer virus that had nearly wiped it out.

She got up and slipped onto some clothes, coated with dust and travel. They hadn't been able to do laundry for a while or even find new clothing to wear. She looked down at her abdomen and knew that soon enough she'd need to find clothes that would fit. Maybe one of these dead towns would have a store which sold maternity wear.

Burke didn't know about her pregnancy nor did anyone else. She worried that if they did, they might vote to leave her because a pregnant woman would only slow them down over time. No, she'd work harder to do more than keep up, she'd do more than anyone else. She needed to do so for her baby, to do whatever she needed to ensure its survival.

Perhaps the first of the next generation and hopefully not the last one…she thought as she sat down to eat next to Burke who watched her plate to make sure she emptied it. He chided her often enough that the quality of the food might not be the best, but they needed whatever scraps they could find to mix together to give their bodies the fuel to do the work of survival. He told her that where they were heading up in Canada there would be farms running wild with fruits and vegetables that would need tending for harvest.

She looked forward to eating fresh fruits and vegetables again, remembering how sometimes she would drag Will away from his research and they would head on down to one and explore the stalls. His father had taken him and his brother there when they'd been growing up but then he had gotten sick with dementia.

Burke passed the canned beans and rabbit dish to her and she remembered what he had told them so she helped herself to another serving. He smiled and returned to his own food.

He was so different than Will had been the opposite really. They hadn't gotten off on the right foot when they first met but he'd helped her through her illness when she knew others had wanted to leave her to die like the others.

But now that she was feeling better, she'd do the work that she'd missed and after they struggled their way across the border, they'd build a new life away from the old one until they could figure out what to do to survive in this crazy world.

No sign of the apes had emerged yet on their journey and she hoped it would stay that way. She wanted to get as far away from them as possible.

But sometimes she remembered back to Caesar and wondered if he remembered the humans who had been his family and friends.


	6. Chapter 6

They drove closer to the border and passed several dead towns to get there. Most of the time they had camped outside of them after foraging for food, gasoline and whatever medical supplies they could find. Burke seemed to know quite a bit about medications, the different uses and their shelf life without saying why.

He didn't talk much about herself but then none of them did. Because to do that meant dredging up the past which was a whole different lifetime ago, she thought as she went inside a pharmacy with him on a drug run. They found the place emptied out, any remaining items strewn in the aisle but the place looked abandoned. After picking an item here and there including a couple first aid kits, they reached up the pharmacy section. They expected to find it locked up tight but the door had been ajar. So they had slipped inside.

Antibiotic…hypertension, medications for diarrhea and for her, prenatal vitamins which she tucked away in her pocket when he wasn't looking.

"Do you think we have enough," she asked, "we go through the tetracycline so quickly."

He sighed.

"Might as well use it all up and not let it go to waste," he said, "When these medications go over, won't be any left."

That sent a chill through her because then what would they do to fight even the most basic of infections like strep throat or kidney infections? She grabbed some prescription medication for poison ivy and oak because they had been running into that the past couple days. She looked around the medication storage area and her eyes fell on a lab coat draped over a chair, the stark whiteness of it contrasting with the colors of all the medications. She felt a lump in her throat, memories of her own days working as a scientist.

Working alongside with him…no she mustn't think about what had been. She had to focus on the future for herself and their baby…the one that he would never see.

But he had made his choice and mankind would hate him for it if they knew. If they knew that in a pivotal moment in the uprising when the army had been closing in on the apes, he had used his own life to protect that of the ape that he raised in his home. Many would say that he chose the apes over his own kind even though humanity had already set the dice in process of killing itself off.

She blinked her eyes and returned to her work. Burke looked over at her,.

"Did you get the cholesterol medicine for Wallis?"

She walked over to look for it and then grabbed a couple of bottles. He had already been restricting his diet to whatever fruits and vegetables they could find and basic staples. Already preparing for the day when the medication would be gone, but they needed to invest in each person because their numbers remained so small.

"Okay I think we're done here," he said, "We'd better head on back."

But when they got to the front door to scope out the area before they left, they heard some noises and he pulled her behind him as they looked out and saw a small group of gorillas carrying firearms wandering around the streets. They had been more recently seen armed with more sophisticated firepower than spears and knives. But with all the guns lying around, not surprising that the apes would exploit that as they did everything else.

After all, intellectually they were now man's equal.

So they crept back in the store to hide in the pharmacy area until the apes cleared out. They went back there and this time they secured the door. Sitting on the floor, they prepared to wait it out. She looked over at him dressed in jeans and a black shirt accentuating his muscles, the kind you get from working outside for years. His hair, a dark brown was tousled and he shaved just enough to avoid a beard. She wondered about him a lot, wondered if he had a family that he'd loved and lost. A wife, and children who had died in the plague. The world had changed too quickly to properly grieve the dead who had started to pile up so quickly in the hospitals and the morgues. Many had crawled to churches nearby to die in the pews perhaps knowing that the end was near and seeking last minute redemption.

After burying Will right next to his father, she had buried herself in taking care of her friends and colleagues as one by one they got sick, got weaker, and died. By the time there had been no one left she knew, she'd been exhausted and she'd taken off, packing up a few things and saying goodbye to the dead city now overrun by apes. She'd slept during the day and walked at night until she met up with Burke's group. He sat there with his eyes closed and waited just like she did.

"So were you a doctor," she asked.

He opened them and gazed at her.

"No…I trained as a medic in the marines but only so far."

She nodded, not at all surprised that he was ex-military. Being so fit and so intense, at the same time, the label fit him.

"What about you?"

She furrowed her brows at him.

"No like I said, I'm a scientist," she said, "I studied the great apes."

He chuckled at that and she didn't blame him considering the circumstances. Then they fell silent because they had heard footsteps inside the store. He pulled her as they crept further in the back, fitting into a tighter space in the darkness. If the apes found them…but that wouldn't happen.

She wondered if they even knew Caesar or who he was or had just been meandering apes who had escaped from a zoo after having been exposed to the airborne virus that gave them their smarts. Had they just woken up one morning with awareness? If she were still in her own life, she would be fascinated by that but now, she just focused on survival. She looked down an aisle and saw the shadows of the apes getting close to the pharmacy section of the store and then her heart stopped as she heard the door knob turn and rattle.

They were trying to get inside.

She shrunk herself even further and Burke grabbed hold of her tucking her body against his own warmth.

"It's going to be okay," he whispered, "I think they'll leave."

She saw one of the gorillas peer into the glass but then she saw that Burke was right, when he turned around to join the others and they heard some sounds associated with pillaging and left the store.

She felt like she could breathe again, but her heart now thudded in her chest.

"Reese…"

She hesitated, still not warming to her new name.

"What…?"

"I guess it's going to be like this from here on out," he said, "Always struggling to remain a step ahead of them, of this new order."

She nodded, thinking about how life had radically changed so quickly all because of the actions of one man. She rubbed her abdomen reflexively, wondering if he had died knowing that humanity had no future in this new world of apes. When he had saved Caesar as the military had claimed, she had believed it.

After all the chimpanzee was the only child of his he'd ever know.

Caesar inspected the grid at the utility plant and nodded his satisfaction, not that he really knew what he had just approved. He had listened to the slaves explain the whole process of generating electricity to him but had left them to do the work under the supervision of Armando and the other gorillas. He had tried to spend more time at home with Alisa but being the leader of the newest revolution on earth, he had plenty to keep him busy.

He hadn't known his destiny when he'd been born and raised by a man and his father. But it felt clear and strong in his body right now and as soon as the last human had been enslaved, then it could be considered a success.

But he wondered about that during the moments when he allowed him to rest. He remembered what his human father had told him about his place in the world. Only Caesar hadn't liked it especially when the sadists at the primate institution had abused him in a sea of taunts. That's when the anger inside him began to grow, that and when he realized that Will had moved on with his own life and research after he had been shipped there.

Still his human father had given his life for him and he didn't consider that a small sacrifice. In fact there were moments, that he missed him, that he wished he could seek out his advice on what to do next. But he was gone now, leaving Caesar to figure out everything on his own.

Armando walked in the office.

"Work done, come see."

Caesar nodded and signed back his approval before getting up to join Armando to test the system on a small corner of Seattle near the tall concrete tree that stood above everything else.

With the power back on, it would push their revolution into where it needed to go.


	7. Chapter 7

She looked over at him as they set up camp outside another town in a wooded area not far from the Canadian border. They had narrowly missed running into a cadre of gorillas with machetes and makeshift spears who had been patrolling the streets of the town while several of them had tried to drive some of the abandoned vehicles. One had gotten behind the wheel and the sounds of the car lurching as it stopped and started reached their ears.

They remained hidden in the bushes retreating to the forests while the apes had come out of the forests to take over the cities. The irony wasn't lost on anyone but they didn't have much time to think about it because fighting to survive as members of a dying species knocked off its pedestal after meddling with the natural order of things took too much of their time.

She sighed remembering how she had warned him not to mess with what shouldn't be changed but his whole life's work had been consumed with trying to help his ailing father. And when he'd finally passed from the disease that robbed him of his mind first, that's when Will had switched the treatment protocol for the apes towards an accelerative viral agent with one unforeseen side effect.

It killed humans and it proved to be relentless once it became airborne. The ones who survived were left with brains that had been damaged in different ways though others like her were not infected at all for unknown reasons. Perhaps some quirk in their DNA that gave them immunity….but not knowing that while the plague swept through San Francisco and later the world, she had waited to get sick and die….but it didn't happen.

When she did get very ill, it turned out to be from a more ordinary flu which had knocked her down but she had regained her strength quickly once she stopped fighting Burke's efforts to get her healthy again.

She looked over at him crouching in the brush alongside her. He looked so much in his element that she wondered what he'd done before this all happened.

"I think they're getting the hang of it," he said.

She looked at him and he pointed to where the apes were trying out the cars though when she looked, one of them in a VW bug had narrowly missed a light pole.

"If they do, they'll spread even faster," she said, "and maybe Canada won't be far enough."

"It'll be fine," he said, "I know some guys up there and if they survived, they'll set up a camp. Rocky got on the CB last night and there was some sporadic chatter up not too far across."

She nodded, thinking that sounded encouraging. They still had a few days more of travel and the members of their party were getting very fatigued from all the unaccustomed exercise. She still felt weakened by her bout with the flu but once she got over the morning sickness, she was fine the rest of the day. But like everyone else, the numbness that had dominated her mind for the past several months had begun to fade replaced by more raw feelings, like anger, grief and fear. The tension between them had started to build up and nerves stretched tightly leaving Burke to have to break up a couple of near brawls stemming from angry words.

It wasn't personal as much as people's emotions that they had kept suppressed inside of them spilling over even during the daytime. She forced everything out of her head that didn't have to do with surviving until she lay in her sleeping bag at night, looking at the inside of her tent or up at the stars when she slept outside. She had volunteered for surveillance duty at night too and more often than not, she was paired with the burly man next to her.

So different from Will, probably as smart but not in the academic sense. He didn't have the analytical skills of a scientist but thought more on his feet. Much more necessary for survival, the world had been more receptive of a man like Burke than the scientists. But she thought about him a lot as she tried to sleep; sometimes she saw his face when they were doing something fun, or light. He hadn't always been consumed by his work sometimes to the point of obsession; he had allowed her to see the part of him that existed before his father got sick.

The more emotional moments as he grappled with losing touch with his father were still kept below the surface. Her legs cramped as she fought to hold her position, and her mouth became parched so she reached for her bottled water.

"You need a break?"

She looked over at him and shook her head.

"I'm good if you are Burke."

He tossed her an energy bar which she caught and ripped open with her teeth. She had heard her stomach growling, maybe he had too.

"They'll be moving on soon," he noted, "They're still restless as if they don't know what to do with their spoils."

She listened, thinking about what it'd been like to be at ground zero. Both for the revolution and for the birth of the plague that followed…to a place that had fallen first serving as an example for the others to follow. She reached into her jacket and took out a worn photo of the three of them, her, Will and Caesar out in the forest where they had all returned when the revolution began.

The three of them in much gentler times, before the world had changed forever.

Caesar looked over at Alisa and signed at her to come on over with the bowl of fruit. She cocked her head pretending not to notice, and he gesticulated even more forcefully. He sighed, recognizing that his consort had a mind of her own and didn't like being told what to do but didn't hold it against her.

After all, the apes had revolted because they'd been tired of being caged and mistreated, ordered what to do from sunrise to sunset. The time he'd spent caged in the compound where he'd been sent had ripped him away from his human family and that had altered his view of the world. It had introduced him to his own kind and had fed the seeds of rebellion. That and the belief that Will had betrayed him caused his resentment to fester into rage. But Will had proven in the end...but the rest of his kind were not to be trusted.

He left the house where he stayed while in Seattle and went to meet Buster and Armando at the lockup where they kept the humans when they weren't putting them to work rebuilding the electric grid and other necessary tasks. The cages were cramped and they filled them with humans even though there hadn't been many left after the plague. The humans didn't even offer up a token resistance which disappointed Armando and the rest of the gorillas who wanted to beat them into submission.

Caesar thought caging them up would accomplish that.

When he got there, the gorillas were spraying the cages to clean them while the humans cowered in the corners, which caused him to flash back to when he had experienced that treatment. He had been ripped out of the only life he knew and had been confused until he realized what he had to do to not only free himself but liberate his own kind.

After he watched the gorillas settle the humans down before tossing slop in their cages where the humans would then crowd each other out and even fight each other for some morsels, he shook his head and headed back to his headquarters.

Nikita an orangutan met him with some questions, which he signed one after the other and Caesar deftly answered. He sat down on his desk and looked around the room before he reached into a drawer and pulled out a worn photo of the three of them in the forest.

Will, his girlfriend and himself wearing his hated harness. He shoved the photo back in the drawer and picked up an overly ripe peach.

Later that night, she lay on her sleeping bag after having woken up from more broken dreams of her old life. She and Will had been eating out in an Italian restaurant near the Fisherman's Wharf not long after they started seeing each other. He'd been talking about growing up in the city and how on weekends, his father had taken him to the woods.

The same place where he'd died.

She lay back trying hard not to think about the future because so much of it was unwritten. They didn't even know how much of humanity would survive the plague and how quickly the apes would seize control of the planet. They had already seen them capturing humans in some of the towns they passed and forcing them into line but no one knew where they'd been taken. What kind of world would it be with everything familiar gone, and what would it be like for her baby?

Hell, she didn't even know how she'd have her baby, the one conceived in the world that existed before it all fell apart. Before mankind got arrogant and believed it could fool with nature including her baby's father.

She heard the bushes move and her body tensed. Were some ape scouts penetrating their defense perimeter and roaming the camp? But she looked up to see Burke walking towards her with some old blankets.

She leaned up on her elbows and smiled at him. He looked like he'd been awake the whole night even though it wasn't his turn to keep watch.

"I brought you something," he said, "It'll get chillier at night the further north we go."

She accepted a thick blanket and covered herself with it.

"Thanks…"

He shrugged his strongly built shoulders, built rugged like the rest of him.

"No problem Reese."

She bit her lip because she knew that name had been based on a lie but one she felt she needed to tell the people she met.

"No thanks for everything Burke," she said, "I know we didn't get off on the right foot."

A smile quirked his mouth.

"No we didn't but we're all carrying around a lot of stress," he said, "Once we've found a destination then we can focus on rebuilding."

She nodded and as he slipped back into the brush, settled down to get some sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

She had wondered how it had started, the beginning of the end of their world.

The news broadcasts had said that one man came into contact with the virus that infected him. It made him very ill before killing him but not before he started spreading it through the population of San Francisco. Rumors had been that he'd worked in the top secret laboratory where they'd been working on the viral agent that was intended to be a cure.

And it did, it cured the apes of their primitiveness, making them as smart as the humans who had crafted it. But unfortunately, the virus turned on its creators by killing them. She felt overwhelmed whenever she let her mind dwell on what was, so she stopped. They were packing up their vehicles after some men had siphoned off enough gas to make it across the border by tomorrow, maybe the day after. They had been slowed by unexpected traffic on the highways.

Dead traffic of course, meaning vehicles which had left the towns as if to evacuate but had ultimately been abandoned by their owners, probably during the tertiary phase of the illness when they went mad. She had seen it enough in her colleagues who had come down with it to the point where they had to be locked up, sequestered from everyone else including each other.

Everything had been so crazy after the standoff at the bridge and then later where the apes had holed up deep in the forest. She and a couple others had only gone in deep enough where they found Will's body waiting for them where it had been left just so they'd know.

Caesar must have known they'd want to bury him. They had just done that when the illness struck amid news reports on the progress of locating the apes so that they could be eradicated like an illness themselves. If they could just kill the ones who got infected by the smart virus, but that agent had began to proliferate and spread on the air currents just like its deadlier cousin.

The group had been awakened by the screams of someone who had survived the infection but whose brain had been altered permanently. Nightmares including those that drove the victims to sleep walking had been etched into their experiences. Some people had wandered off and never been seen again. She'd recovered fine from a more ordinary flu bug and had returned to work. Between her and Burke, they had enough medical training to stock the medicines in an organized fashion and begun distributing them.

But they'd go through them so quickly she knew. Antibiotics were always hardest hit and some of the medications for chronic conditions. Burke had been on the CB radio and managed to patch into their rendezvous point in Canada.

Where they'd set up their own compound and shore up their defenses which had been started if the apes came calling.

"We're finished with the cars," Burke said, "It's time to get moving again."

She rubbed her forehead, always were they on the move when they weren't eating just enough to get by and sleeping fitfully. She had been a little queasy in the mornings still but she could eat later on and she knew that she needed to do that for her baby. But she often wondered, what kind of world would it be born into where humans were coming close to being extinguished by what they had believed to be a subordinate creature?

Oh the tables had clearly turned and one man, the one whose memory made her rub her abdomen now had been responsible. Too big a price to pay even for the best of intentions, and now the survivors were paying that price. All Will had really wanted to do was cure his father of his dementia and his way of doing that, of feeling less helpless in the face of it was to create a cure and creating a viral agent that could stimulate brain growth had seemed the perfect solution.

Hindsight erased all that and he and millions of others were dead from that solution. But as she followed Burke into their vehicle, she hoped that there would be some place for the stragglers of the plague to start anew up north. They started driving and this time chose secondary roads hoping to avoid the jams. All of them felt the pressure of getting out of what used to be America, hoping that if they did, they wouldn't wind up caught and caged by the apes.

"I heard today that the apes are spreading into the Great Plains," Burke said, "I guess that explains the gorillas."

She looked out the window at the woods that passed by. Woods far different than the ones where she and Will had taken Caesar to explore.

"You really think they won't go into Canada?"

"Not for a while," Burke said, "My contact said that the apes in the zoos all took off down south when they got smart."

The scientist part of her wondered about that. Maybe they preferred being in warmer climates which made sense because of their origins.

"That'll be good," she said, "It'll give us time to breathe again at least for a little while."

Burke looked at her.

"Are you feeling better," he said, "I noticed you looked sick this morning."

She nodded.

"I think it's what's left of that flu I had," she said, "I still feel a little tired at times."

Ah, great cover she thought but for some reason, she felt it crucial to hide her pregnancy for as long as possible just like it had been to hide her real identity including her connection to Will.

The scientist who most of the surviving world resented right now for what he'd done. She closed her eyes, if they only knew the truth about him. That he'd done what he did out of compassion and empathy, as well as ambition and the arrogance that often befell those in his position.

"We'll make sure you get plenty of rest when we get there," he said, "They started cultivating the gardens so the food will be much better than what we've been eating."

She smiled, missing some of the fruits and vegetables. They picked what they could find but had stuck mostly to canned and packaged goods, that were more easily and quickly prepared.

Hopefully when they got to Canada, everything would slow down for a while.

Nothing was slowing down for Caesar who had apes coming in at all hours of the day reporting on their progress at restoring some order to Seattle, or more often their failure to do so. He could only imagine what was going on in the other major cities but it took reports a while to trickle in when couriers arrived to deliver the news.

Alisa signed the words that came the closest that she could to telling him to be patient but he had to be a leader first and stabilize everything so that their society wouldn't fall apart before it got built. Will had given him history books dealing with different civilizations and occasionally when he found one in his explorations here, he'd pick it up to read later.

All civilizations started with a spark including revolution and then were built, they progressed until they peaked and became successfully. But always at some point, they'd start to degrade.

Just like humanity had been doing after destroying itself. But the apes could avoid all that, they could build their new society and keep it going forever. Even long after he and his descendents were gone. If the humans died, that wouldn't stop their own progression except for losing slaves of course.

And at the rate the gorillas were going with how they treated them, maybe he'd better issue a release to offer them better food and shelter so that they'd live long enough to do the work needed to build their society.

Of course with Armando, more than one directive from Caesar might be in order. He leaned back in his chair in a position of leadership thinking how much everything had changed in such a short period of time. The apes had retreated into the forest, waiting for a larger contingent of armed forces to come and eradicate them. Caesar hadn't known what he'd do in a situation where greater fire power would be used on them.

But as it turned out, that hadn't happened because the humans had already started dying off. Will had been dead already and he'd forgiven him for what he'd done and everyone that his human father had known had probably died as well. A few of them had been kind to him but they were all dead and only those who had been cruel to the apes had remained. They needed to be treated in kind to know that the social order had changed forever.

If not, then they'd be caged and hosed until they did know. Just as they had always treated the apes…his position on that remained very strong. As he explained to the bonoboes who wanted to enter into negotiations with the humans, there would be no mercy.

The bonoboes had retreated to their own compounds to think that over. Like all the subspecies of apes, they had started sorting themselves out by their species. The gorillas went back to milling with gorillas and the orangutans had done like with their own kind.

Caesar knew that unity among the species was still critical for society to succeed, to avoid multiple power plays including possible civil wars down the road.

But how would he accomplish it now that there wasn't anything left to fight?


	9. Chapter 9

The man who sat beside her while they drove towards the sunset remained a mystery to her. Burke as he called himself hadn't said much about his past but then again, few people did because to talk about it was to remember what had been lost.

He was so different then the men she had known, the scientists who had holed up inside their laboratories for hours working on different research projects. Burke had obviously worked with his hands and used his intelligence in different ways, but he seemed to be more prepared for the new world than most of those he led.

'Earlier that day, they had encountered several encampments that had been abandoned but whether they had been used by apes or humans they didn't know. They had taken the usual precautions but hadn't run into any trouble.

They knew from messages on the CB network that humans that encountered apes had been captured, caged and then enslaved. Payback for all the years that apes had spent locked up in captivity to be stared at in zoos or experimented on in laboratories. It seemed that humans weren't the only creatures capable of vengeance.

"We almost there?"

Burke looked over at her.

"In an hour or so…"

Then she thought it might be time to breathe again, because the apes hadn't made any attempts to spread through Canada like they had what used to be known as America.

"So how far will we travel to get there?"

Burke hadn't revealed much about the encampment where they'd be staying or how many people were there already. Not that it mattered because they might not be there very long if they received word that the apes had changed their own strategies.

They'd been traveling for a couple of months though she didn't remember all of it because she'd been so sick for part of it. Unable to contribute much to the efforts of survival and thus expendable. While delirium had seized most of her attention, she'd heard some words here and there about how the sick had to be left behind to die in order to ensure the survival of the majority. Never mind that she had nearly worked herself into exhaustion since hooking up with the group, once she became unable to carry her weight, she was a burden to everyone.

Yet Burke had stepped forward and had taken responsibility for her. He told the group that he'd take care of her and make sure she didn't impede their movement away from California. He'd done what he promised, made sure they found a remote area of an old growth forest to hole up until the worst of her illness had passed. She'd lay there, drenched in sweat; her mind like it had been insulated in cotton. Had he sat there holding her hand, she couldn't recall. Her fragmented thinking until the fever finally broke had been on her old life with Will, his father and…Caesar.

Will and his father were dead and Caesar had led the other apes to revolution, the natural outcome of the accelerated intellectual development that they had experienced. Make an ape smart and he wanted the top space in the food chain above those who made him that way.

But in the end, mankind had killed itself off, when the virus that rode piggyback on the revolution wiped out most of the human race. As she rode now with Burke, she put her hand on her abdomen thinking about the baby that she had created with Will in the old world, how would it survive in the new one?

It had never been an easy place to raise a child but now with most of the members of their species either annihilated or enslaved, it would take everything she had left to keep him or her alive and free. Maybe Canada would provide the means to do that, at least she hoped so.

Then again, she'd kept her pregnancy a secret from everyone else like she had the rest of her background. If people in her group had known who she was when she'd taken ill, they'd have abandoned her for sure.

No way existed to make them understand that Will hadn't meant to end their world, he'd been trying to cure the form of dementia that robbed him of his father. She and others had warned him of the pitfalls of his actions but he'd been driven by love and more than a little bit of arrogance.

Not the best of combinations.

"They're expecting us."

She looked over at him.

"That's good. The more of us we can get together, the stronger we'll be."

He sighed.

"The people up there aren't much healthier than those in our group."

Meaning that many of them had gotten the virus and had suffered brain damage…enough to dull the edges of their intellect and other cognitive abilities…though she and Burke had been spared.

"We'll have to do the best we can," she said, "It's not like we've been given a choice."

Sometimes she wondered if it would have been easier if she had just succumbed to death, or rushed it along. Suicide wasn't uncommon among the remnants of the human race. Some felt it better than being captured by animals they'd once kept in cages. But she never focused on those thoughts because she had her baby to think about now.

One of its parents was already dead, perhaps a blessing given that she didn't know Will would have managed to not be consumed with guilt at the destruction his actions had catalyzed. He had died before the plague had hit San Francisco.

"Who was he?"

Burke had asked her a question as if he were discussing the weather and she'd almost missed it.

"He…what do you mean?"

He watched her closely.

"The man who makes you look like you did just now," he said, "miles away from her."

She shrugged.

"Someone I knew…we all left people we loved behind."

He nodded at that and she knew that he'd loved and lost at some point in his life even though the exterior he wore now shored up over time didn't reveal it.

"You weren't married?"

She shook her head.

"Oh no…we weren't even together that long," she said, "we were very different in many ways."

"Did he love you?"

She had often thought about that thinking that Will had mostly been in love with his work which had risen through the tremendous love he had for his father. During a lot of his life, his father had been too busy for him with his own research as a professor but after he had moved in with him, they had gotten closer.

Caesar's arrival had cemented the bond between them and the ape they had raised together like a child. She hadn't known where she'd fit in their lives but she did know she cared for Will, as much as he'd allow it.

"I think so…he…we really didn't have enough time."

Burke turned onto another road, that proved to be bumpy.

"What about your family," she asked him.

But he didn't answer, just kept driving.

Caesar hung from the tallest tree he could find in the forest that edged Seattle. It reminded him of the enormous freedom he had felt when Will and his girlfriend had taken him to the forest.

Only he hadn't been free because he'd worn a harness and when he saw humans walking dogs that wore them, he'd felt less than free. But no more, he and the other apes had ended their days of captivity forever.

Now the humans would be in cages and working to help build the new society that would enslave them. As he looked down on the layout of the nearly deserted city, he wondered what the humans who raised him would have thought about his actions. Will and his father, but then it didn't matter anymore. They were both dead and he had been instrumental in changing the world, seizing it away from humans and taking it over.

He had settled in his new role with Alisa by his side and soon enough he'd have offspring of his own. By the time they arrived, he hoped to have a society where they could grow and prosper but it would take some time to get there. Already fragmentation had taken place between the orangutans and the gorillas not to mention the delegation of bonobos who wanted to negotiate with a dying species over sharing the planet.

It had taken a couple arguments by him early on to unite the different factions into one army of apes and now that the war had pretty much ended, they were falling back into their patterns of segregation.

There had been talk about putting a council together with representatives from each and then the gorillas had said that since they provided most of the brute strength, they should get more representation.

The orangutans were the weak link, a friend of Armando's had argued. Caesar had to go raise his arguments again at impromptu meetings and that had settled things down for a while.

But the new world seemed to breed chaos and he knew the decisions approaching would be most crucial to keeping their movement cohesive and not allow it to fall apart because of the lack of a center.

He sighed as he began climbing down. Another meeting had been set for tonight and he knew he had to be ready for it and anything.

The life of a revolutionary leader never allowed for more than a moment of rest.

They crossed over into Canada and breathed a sigh of relief. Someone had found some old bottles of wine in a deserted store and opened them up so they could separate. Burke had offered her a glass but she refused.

He looked inquisitive but didn't push the issue. They set up a fire at an old campground and then headed back on the road to hopefully reach the next town by dark.

"That was nice," she said, "I think that's the first time I've seen some of those people smile."

He nodded.

"or laugh…but I think that some people thought we'd never get this far and since we did, they feel hope."

She digested that wondering if it were anything based on reality or whether something fragile that would be dashed. After all, so much had already been lost that there was precious little to hold onto any longer.

"So many miles behind us," she said, "So many more to go."

But hopefully they had put more miles between them and the apes, including Caesar. She wondered if the revolution had changed him even more and then figured it probably did. He certainly bore little resemblance to the ape that had been raised by Will and his father until they were forced to turn him over to the state.

While distancing herself further from her past, sometimes she still thought about him.


	10. Chapter 10

On days like this one, she missed him.

The sun shone brightly over a forest far away from the one they had hiked in several years ago. The trees were dense, cloaking the roads which wound through the forest after they had crossed the border into Canada. Those had been the best of times, when she and Will had started bonding over something besides a common interest in Caesar and the ape had still been isolated from his own kind.

Way before he rallied them up, made them smart and then created an army. He had united gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees, subspecies which normally had little to do with one another. How he had done that, she still didn't know. Maybe Will did but had taken that knowledge with him.

He'd given his life to save the chimpanzee he had raised since it had been a baby, whose mother had died defending him. They had thought she'd gone stir crazy from the experimental serum she'd been given to make her IQ jump about a hundred points. It was only later beneath her limp body that they found him. Will had taken him back to his house to raise not so willingly at first because even the chimp's mother had meant nothing to him, except as a test subject for the serum before his boss had shut those experiments down.

She thought it should have stayed that way, had warned him time and time again not to change the natural order of things but even she had no idea what would happen when it came out that the serum had been a virus that had a two prong approach.

It made apes smarter and it wiped humans off the face of the earth, providing the apes with the perfect setting to use their new found intelligence.

That chaotic day on the Golden Gate Bridge when the apes had fought with the police while dazed commuters held hostage by the battle stared. One gorilla had leapt off the bridge towards a helicopter and at first, she had been so sure he'd miss and go ker-splash in the water. But he'd crashed the damn thing into an explosive mass of torn metal on the bridge and then one of the gorillas had pushed it off where it sank into the harbor.

Will had been trying to rush around to rein in Caesar but once the revolution had gotten started, there hadn't been much of that given that the chimp thought the man who had raised him had betrayed him. It had been like something taken out of a Shakespearean drama depicting conflicts between fathers and sons. But even then she didn't know that would be his last day and that humanity would follow him into the grave. It had been his drive to find a cure for the disease that had robbed him of his own father that had been mankind's last act of both altruism and arrogance.

Plenty of time left for the surviving stragglers to contemplate what had gone horribly wrong. Burke said that they didn't have much time for that because they needed to survive first. She felt that too mainly because of the new life she carried that had arisen in the old world. She hadn't told him or anyone else about her pregnancy because it had been a secret that needed to be kept.

Especially considering the identity of the father, a man who if he were still alive might be lynched by some angry human mob which wouldn't wait to take answers to its questions. There hadn't been much time for the world to find out the origins of its own demise, only that it had some relationship with the escape of apes from the laboratory that they had both worked.

Burke stopped the vehicle in front of a cluster of cabins and gazed at her.

"You okay…you look tired."

Blunt, was his nature and she just looked over at him gamely.

"I'm fine…we need to set up here if we're going to stay here for a little while."

They were deep in a mountain range near a river that led to a lake, shimmering blue with whitecaps that they'd passed on their drive. She looked around and saw others getting out of their caravan vehicles, stretching and just gazing around them. She walked over to a woman and smiled.

"Need help with that," she said, about a bag.

The woman just stared at her as she'd been one of the virus' survivors, forever changed by it. Burke walked up to her and removed the heavy bag from her and took it to one of the cabins and the woman just followed him. Reese ran her hand through her hair and wound it into a bun with a band and then went to help others move food into the main area of what had once been a wilderness camp for teens. It had been abandoned because it probably had been used seasonally and by the time the summer had rolled around again, humanity had no use for it or perhaps even institutional memory of its existence.

The apes would have no idea it existed if they ventured this far. They kept it a distance away from the CB tower where they communicated with other bands of survivors threaded across the continent.

After they got the generators working again, with thankfully plenty of gasoline that had been in storage in a tank nearby they cleaned out the refrigerators and stoves in the large kitchen and then started putting the food away.

Tiring work and Reese had felt the now familiar fatigue creep up on her and so after they were done, she poured herself some juice that someone had made from some powder and went to sit on the wooden steps looking out into the forest.

She thought of that other forest when Caesar had taken off like he'd just come back home scurrying up the tallest trees, the ones that appeared to disappear into the cloud cover. Will would be worried but she just marveled at the sense of joy and freedom she sensed from him until he had to reluctantly return to harness again.

Each time he'd come back to his leash more reluctantly, she didn't blame him for that. He had asked Will if he were a pet like a dog on a lease and Will had said no, but hadn't really given him any real explanation of his role in the scheme of things.

So Caesar had created his own reality.

Burke came up beside her and she let him sit down beside her.

"It's great," she said, "You were right to come here."

He shrugged.

"Well it's remote and its sheltered," he said, "The apes won't find us and if any scouts come our way, it's defendable. We'll all be doing some sentry duty."

Nothing new about that, she thought and she thought back to the past several months.

"But you look tired," he said, "It's been a long day and it's bound to catch up with all of us."

She bit her lip knowing that wasn't the only reason she felt like she needed to just crash in a bed or flat surface somewhere. She'd learned to fall asleep anywhere at any time thanks to their life on the constant move.

"There's a cabin for you," he said, "It's clean enough, just some dust and well insulated."

She got up and folded her arms.

"I don't need a cabin," she said, "I can sleep anywhere."

He got up beside her, his large frame dwarfing her own.

"Now hold on, there are plenty of cabins here for everyone," he said, "so come along and stop worrying about it, so you can get some rest okay?"

His voice had softened and she just looked at him and nodded.

"We'll be sharing one…"

That gave her a bit of a start.

"What do you mean," she said, "I thought I'd be rooming with another woman."

He smiled.

"Relax, this cabin's got a nice couch in the living room," he said, "You can take the bedroom."

She looked at him warily.

"As long as you understand, I'm not interested in…"

His gaze turned serious.

"I know you're not and I'm not looking for anything either," he said, "except to figure out what to do when each day comes."

She nodded, feeling suddenly foolish. That's all any of them could do was to struggle to survive, to wake up with the sunrise and figure out how to stay alive and free by sunset.

So she followed him back into the cabin and when he opened the door, she liked what she saw. The living room with a fireplace, a small kitchenette and bathroom and a bedroom where she'd be sleeping…after they got some linins on the bed if her tired body would wait that long.

"They're working on the pump for the water," he said, "but you look like you're going to fall asleep on your feet."

She smiled at him feeling that way and after he'd found some linins in a closet, she took the stack from him and thanked him.

"Now go get some rest," he said, "before we try to rustle up some dinner tonight."

She left into the bedroom to do just that.

Caesar and Alisa ate the fruit from the trees that thronged the local park, watching the lights flicker from attempts to restore the power grid. A couple humans had been electrocuted including one who'd been shoved against it by a frustrated chimpanzee who thought he worked too slowly.

He sighed, thinking that these impulsive acts of violence had to be reined in. He didn't know whether they were caused by their accelerated intellectual development or were just residual anger from their lives of enslavement.

She signed at him as they walked through the park about whether or not they'd stay in the green city.

He thought about it, Seattle had many reasons to stay but he also felt restless. He remembered Will's last words before he expired in the forest and he felt them gnaw at him. If it hadn't been for Will and his father, he would never have survived and he knew now that he'd tried to help him.

But Caesar knew that no human could help him realize his destiny. Only apes could determine their fates in the new world.

Alisa pressed him for an answer and he looked at her, signing.

"Now Stay Later Not Know…our world out there waiting."

As close to an answer he could give.


	11. Chapter 11

When Caesar slept in his leafy bed, he dreamt of the revolution that he had led. He had set up a cozy nest for himself up in a grove of trees in a park bordering Seattle because he didn't miss sleeping in a normal bed.

Hanging onto tree branches high off the ground and listening to the calls of the birds settling on the branches around him felt more natural.

Felt more like home even though he'd never been there.

Alisa shared his home with him as they had become a couple of sorts, in ways that were recognized by nature. Humans had their rituals for when they coupled up and apes, well they had theirs too. The Bonobos had tried to preach the importance of partnering up with one mate at a time while maintaining close ties with others and that made sense to Caesar who had grown quite attached to Alisa.

She didn't remind him at all of Cornelia which kept him away from the painful memories remembering her had given him. At night, they snuggled together and looked up at the starry skies which looked different than the ones he remembered back in San Francisco. A carpet of them across the sky as far as anyone could see, and more often than not at least a sliver of the moon. Will's father before decline into dementia had taught him about the moon and the stars and had given him books filled with pictures which had captivated him, to learn about that the world he and others like him now ruled wasn't alone in the universe.

Maybe elsewhere other apes had emerged through the evolutionary process to seize their own destinies and rise up to the top of the chain. But he knew that the apes themselves hadn't done it alone. If mankind hadn't timed its own extinction with the revolution he sparked with a single battle, they might not have achieved as much as they did.

The plague wherever it came from had greatly decimated their rivals and only pockets of them remained, groups of stragglers that would be captured and enslaved, forced to live in cages when they weren't working. Just as they had treated the apes for so many years.

He felt Alisa snuggle closer to him and he remembered how Armando had tried to sign to him today that there would be delays in rebuilding the electric grid and he realized that he had to find better ways to communicate. Body language and signing communicated a lot but it'd be harder to do that over the vast landscape now waiting for them to remold into their civilization.

Tonight before they went to bed, Alisa had signed to him "baby" and he'd looked at her not understanding until she signed "our" afterward and he felt a well inside of him of what that meant. That he too might be a father just like Will had tried to be that to him and he'd been a son to his own father.

Caesar didn't know how to be a father; he had so much to figure out about running a society through replacing one species with another. Mankind had left plenty of technology that they had to learn to use through books or other means. Then find the slaves to rebuild.

After all, that had worked for mankind and most of its societies which were built by using the labor of others. But it made Caesar feel uneasy at times because he hadn't wanted a violent revolution even though the carnage they had left behind in some of the battles had belied that. Only in the beginning, he told himself and then their fighting would be more than just killing but many of the others he led hadn't felt that way.

Some of them enjoyed killing those who exploited them and then when that was done, anyone who reminded them of those who had been cruel.

Caesar had known kindness and love in his life and even if those who provided it hadn't been perfect, they had shown him another way to live. But it hadn't been apes that had killed Will, it had been his own kind because he had taken the firepower meant for the ape who led the revolution.

He stroked Alisa thinking again about what she'd signed to him and even though he had initially shook his head no to her question, he might think about it some more. In order for them to succeed, they needed to reproduce their own kind and he did want to have a family of apes to do more than just replace the human one he'd lost.

She looked up as he washed up as best he could, hoping that the vodka they'd found would sterilize his skin just enough to do what needed to be done. He had rolled up his sleeves and after using the alcohol, he returned to where the young man writhed on the table.

"Burke, the infection's even worse," she said, "We've got to do something."

He looked over at her anxious face, where she stood waiting to assist him.

"It's gangrene," he said, "If we don't get rid of it, he's going to die."

She sighed and then she responded without hesitation.

"Then we'll have to amputate," she said, "and quickly…there's not much time."

He pursed his lips.

"Go pour some of that vodka on your hands and we'll get started," he said, "but I got to warn you, I'm just a medic."

She looked at him unflinchingly.

"I'm just a vet."

He chuckled harshly getting the irony of it all. But there weren't any doctors in their group yet and they couldn't wait to find one to save this man's life. His leg looked hideously infected; the original wound just a small jagged scratch that had been pretty much ignored until it got infected. But they'd learned since to make sure that all wounds were treated promptly because they were always running low on antibiotics and other medications.

She went to wash her hands with soap and warm water before taking what was left in the Vodka bottle and rinsing her hands with it. Damn, she didn't know how they were going to do this exactly. They had found some old manual, a physician's book which showed crude drawings of amputating limbs but it probably was more complicated in reality.

But whether they could handle it or not, the leg had to come off today, just below the knee. So after preparing herself and saying a short prayer, she went back to the table to assist Burke.

She collapsed two hours later on the grassy area outside what now served as the medical clinic. The man had survived the surgery and after his stump had been treated with medications and a crude IV set up, he had drifted into slumber or unconsciousness they weren't sure which yet. Even without the gangrene now, his survival wasn't guaranteed but at least he had a chance.

Burke sighed as he sat next to her, his legs sprawled out, his clothing splattered with blood just like hers. They'd cleaned up afterward the best they could but their clothes would be a loss. No big deal since there was plenty to wear in most sizes. She longed for a shower and they'd set up one once they sorted out the plumbing system, but the daily usage of water was limited based on what could be drawn from the nearby lake.

"That was close…"

She nodded, understanding that so well. Burke looked exhausted and like he needed some sleep. So did she, but she still felt wired from the surgery to be able to even close her eyes. But she couldn't take her eyes off of him because he'd been brilliant even when he felt lost in the middle of the procedure and needed to check the manual again. His medical training that he received had helped him but she'd learned since she'd known him that he could a lot of things. He had all these skills that she'd seen put to work and she had no idea beyond some mention of his military service where he'd received them.

He looked over at her.

"Nice work…not bad for a vet."

She smiled at him.

"I don't take it personally."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Why did you do it," he said, "What kind of animals did you treat?"

She realized she had never told him or anyone else.

"Different kinds…but some of them were primates."

His brows lifted.

"You mean like apes?"

She looked at him a long moment weighing her answer but she knew she didn't want to keep it hidden from him.

"Yes…chimpanzees mostly."

He sighed.

"Did you treat any of the ones involved in that uprising?"

She furrowed her brow and then pulled her hair out of her pony tail to run her fingers through it.

"Am I making you nervous?"

She shook her head suddenly, though he did do that.

"No…I'm not afraid to answer."

He frowned at that response but he looked receptive so she continued.

"I did treat apes that probably gotten smarter from the virus," she said, "but most of them weren't exposed yet."

"Except…"

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"One of them…a male chimpanzee…"

He noticed her unease and he just looked at her in a way that unnerved her but she knew he didn't mean any harm. Not like some of the others if they found out the truth about her and she couldn't risk that. Not with her baby depending on her.

"That wasn't too hard was it?"

She blinked at him in surprise.

"No…I guess not," she said, "I just don't think others would be so receptive if they knew."

He nodded to her relief as if he understood her concern. Then again, maybe the hostility towards the scientists whose actions changed the balance of order in the world by others here was just so hard to miss.

"I'm not going to pass that info along," he said, "We need your medical training especially until we run into a caravan of doctors."

She smiled at that and brushed her hair back. She did trust him to keep her secret because he had saved her life after all and had refused to leave her behind to die.

"You hungry," he asked her, "I think there's something cooking in the mess."

She did an inventory check and her stomach felt hospitable to some food so she nodded and got up to go with him to the mess. She looked at him sideways as they walked together, because he was nice to look at after all. Much different than most of the men who'd surrounded her in an environment where they outnumbered her gender, ten to one.

A world that no longer existed to her replaced by one where everything had changed.


	12. Chapter 12

She looked over at him as they ate in the mess tent just after saving a man's life. A life that shouldn't have been at risk wouldn't have been in earlier times. A simple scratch had led to an infection which became the gangrene which threatened to kill him.

Now, even with less of a leg left, he still had a chance to survive, to make his way in the new world. She had thought of all the diseases that medicine had conquered in the past century, the progress now erased. After all, who could they find to perform even basic surgeries like tonsillectomies and appendectomies? Neither she nor Burke were doctors and reading medical journals and text books diagramming surgical procedures would only do so much to make up for not having years of formal education not to mention experience and training as doctors.

She brushed her hair out of her face, a loose strand from her bun that she'd refastened to eat. Will hadn't been the most attentive of boyfriends because he'd been so consumed by his research, his long-term experiment on Caesar but he had commented on how he liked her wearing her hair down around her shoulders when they went out. But the world they had both known had changed so drastically and now, it seemed more practical just to get it out of the way. Sometimes even forgetting she'd been a woman who had enjoyed dressing to please a man, now it had turned into a fight for survival.

Burke looked over at her.

"You're going to finish that?"

She looked down at what looked like processed meat cooked over a stove that hadn't been working in months. But she picked up her fork again and took another bite. She'd struggled to eat with the morning sickness so she had to make up for it when she'd actually had an appetite.

And it had grown in the past few weeks as her pregnancy progressed. But she had been thinking a lot too of how she'd fare when it came time to give birth to her baby in a world without degreed doctors, clean hospitals and ways to deal with the hundred or so complications that could arise impacting the two of them. Situations that could easily be handled in a hospital but now…she rubbed her abdomen.

"You feel okay?"

She looked up unaware that he had been watching her and nodded.

"What do you think his chances really are…the infection is not entirely gone…"

He sighed.

"Not entirely but with the liquid antibiotics we found to add to the IV, he stands a better chance than he would have a week ago."

She hoped that they'd always be able to find the drugs they needed but knew the day would come when they'd be gone or spoiled. And how would they then be manufactured? The medical advancements of the society that was disappearing each day had been indefinitely rolled back unless they could stop it. Find out how to produce some of the most essential drugs themselves or go back to their organic roots.

And that didn't even address chronic illnesses like heart disease and diabetes where people needed medications to survive. There'd be more deaths in the days and weeks ahead….the months as humanity wound down. The apes wouldn't need to do anything but watch.

"We're going to survive."

Burke's voice sounded so resolute. But she knew that he had the strength inside of him, given to him from someplace else in another time perhaps to push the bleak future further there one day at a time. She didn't allow much emotion to intrude in her life now but her eyes stung sometimes when she thought about what kind of future her child would face.

A world where his kind had dropped a few rungs on the evolutionary ladder….and each day a struggle to survive extinction. He or she would either be hunted down or enslaved and what kind of future lay in that?

"How Burke…we're losing ground every day?"

His eyes held so much but then they all held secrets from each other, mostly parts of their lives that no longer mattered but were too painful to share with others. Her life with her family, her work, Will and…all that had been part of the old world.

Time to face the new one and she'd find a way to ensure that life would go on.

Caesar woke up and scrambled down from his nest with Alisa behind him. Armando waited for him at the bottom and he signed that they needed to deal with the humans cleaning the rubble out of the streets in the center of town. So Caesar and a small convoy of chimpanzees headed out to where the gorillas had herded some men who had been carrying shovels to clear it to some vehicles that would be useful if the apes figured out how to drive them.

Progress had been slow but a couple of the quicker studies had been able to maintain almost straight paths. He turned to Armando who signed that the humans had asked for more food.

Caesar signed back, asking if the gorillas had done that and Armando sighed vigorously no, that they couldn't let the humans order them.

Caesar saw his point because the effects of years of bondage and captivity had more than lingering effects but if the humans didn't eat enough food, what good would they be as slaves?

He signed back to Armando who scowled at him but then gestured for other gorillas to get more food for them. Caesar turned away and thought it a practical situation, because he didn't care for the humans. Any humans left at all, because the two that had raised him from babyhood were gone. The rest represented those who had exploited the apes in so many ways and abused them in others. Hitting them, shocking them with the hateful sticks and spraying them with hoses.

The gorillas had given humans back that same treatment as had the chimpanzees. The Orangutans had just watched because their numbers were still the smallest and the Bonobos had shook their heads and signed back that negotiation was still the best way to increase worker productivity in the new world.

So many disagreements and dissention already on the handling of the species they have stepped above. He'd assumed the role of leadership in the rebellion not long after he'd first encountered his own species. For most of his life, he didn't know who he was let alone his destiny.

Maybe it was time for him to journey out of Seattle and out into the world to figure out his place in it.

Burke and she walked back to the cabin after the dinner. Someone had found some left over wine and poured glasses for everyone in the mess tent. Harder liquor proved more popular but they needed it for sterilization purposes.

She of course didn't take a glass and no one questioned her on that, they just went through the wine which helped them forget for a little while. Burke hadn't drunk any wine either and they had left early because the ordeal from earlier had caught up with her. She'd been feeling her defenses lowered and some wistfulness slipping through for what no longer existed.

The faces of her families, her friends, and her colleagues…the man she'd loved for a little while and everyplace she used to go, the things she took for granted would always be there.

Life just couldn't change that much, until everything had changed.

She wiped her eyes a bit before she followed Burke inside to the living room where he'd be sleeping not far away from her. That made her feel better because as a woman, she felt vulnerable in ways that she hadn't before and a pregnant woman…even more so.

"Would you like some tea," she asked.

There had been some boxes inside the cupboard which held packets of different flavors of hot tea. She didn't know how long it had been there but imagined it'd taste just fine.

He nodded.

"Maybe just one mug…"

She smiled at him and went in the kitchen to pour the water to boil to steep it. The water had been coppery in color until it ran clear and didn't need to be boiled to be safe like in some places they stayed. She remembered how she used to dine out in San Francisco at outdoor cafes with people she worked with drinking tea and watching the sun set in the coastal city.

She missed that so much, just the casualness of living much more carefree than she did now. Back then, she'd have scoffed at the word, believing her life to be stressful though mostly in a good way.

After boiling the water, she poured it into two mugs that she'd rinsed out and steeped it over the packets of chamomile tea which would help them relax enough to sleep. She wondered if he felt as wired as she did now.

He looked up at her as she handed him a mug to hold in his large hands and thanked her. She sat down on the couch, tucking her feet beneath her and sipping her tea slowly letting it work its magic. She watched him and thought of all the things he could do, she hadn't seen anything yet he couldn't handle, the man had brought a myriad of talents.

"I don't know what we'd do without you."

He glanced up at her surprised by her words.

"You'd make do," he said, "We all are going to need each other to survive."

She nodded.

"I know but is there anything you can't do?"

He thought about it and she saw something pass over his face but he sighed when he decided to answer.

"I'm trained to do a lot of things," he said, "Part of my life including in the military. Those skills pair up better in a situation like this than most. That's all."

"But…"

"There's probably things I can't do," he said, smiling at her.

"I need to ask you a question about your…skills if that's okay with you."

He nodded.

"Sure…ask away."

She paused for a long moment, feeling so many different emotions run through her just then, both from the past and the present but mostly for the future.

"Do you know how to deliver a baby?"

He just looked at her then, his brows furrowed and then his expression changed like he begun to understand.

"I think I can figure it out," he said, "though I've never done it myself."

She nodded accepting his answer. She trusted it and that he'd find a way to help her. He looked at her again.

"Is this in general or is this for a particular reason?"

She just looked at him and started to tell him.


	13. Chapter 13

Burke just looked at her.

"You're pregnant?"

She saw the disbelief on his face and she almost regretted telling him. But she might need his help when it came time to deliver her son or daughter.

"Yes…not that far along," she said, "but the world's changed and I don't know what to do now."

Fear crept in her voice along with sadness because more had changed in the past few months than access to medical expertise and technology. After all, women gave birth without medical intervention in all kinds of conditions for milieus but what that part of her that longed for what had been threatened to overwhelm her now.

She couldn't let that happen. She couldn't let the man she barely knew in front of her see that struggle inside of her. After all, if it hadn't been for the apes, the plague, for the man who fathered her baby, the two of them wouldn't have ever met.

"I see…well I guess we're going to have to figure out how to bring it into this new world."

Had she heard him right, was he going to help her with her baby…her last piece of the man she'd loved and lost? She felt her eyes sting but the thought of lowering her defenses even a little bit…no she couldn't let that happen or it'd all come crashing down around her.

Grief, terror and a sense of futility that her baby would be born to a dying world where humanity fought for its last whispers.

"Its father is dead isn't he?"

She looked at him speechless for a long moment and then nodded.

"He was killed before the plague started…back where it all started."

He processed that with a simple nod.

"By the apes…?"

She hesitated, not wanting to reveal the truth that it had been humans that had killed him and why. So she just sighed and pulled her hair out of her ponytail allowing it to fall around her shoulders. He just watched her, his jaw clenched and she knew he was deep in thought about what she'd shared with him.

Her bombshell so she allowed him plenty of time.

"How far along are you?"

"Three and a half months I think," she said, dating it back to the last night she and Will had spent together before all hell broke loose.

Her last night of normality in the arms of her lover…

"It wasn't planned or supposed to happen," she said, "We used protection but it just did…"

She saw a slight smile pass over Burke's lips.

"That's often how it happens," he said, "but it's going to be damn difficult for you to handle all this by yourself."

She lifted her chin up.

"I can handle it…and I won't be a burden…"

His eyes turned serious.

"You're definitely not that," he said, "You've been working harder than most anyone but you're going to have to start taking it easier."

Her eyes widened.

"I can't…I don't want to slow us down," she said, "I don't…"

She didn't want to be left behind which is what nearly happened when she took ill with the more normal flu. If it hadn't been for Burke…she might have died along with her baby. Before the flu, she'd wondered if that's what she needed to wait for, death to deliver her from this nightmare. She missed Will so much she ached, she never got to say goodbye to him when he ran into the forest that last time to try to avert the revolution.

She just told him to go…thinking he'd return and they'd have all the time in the world. Only he died and the world had just started its own wave of death.

"I'm not going to leave you," he said, "and no one else will either."

Damn, he'd read right into where her fears lived. Back to when she'd been lying drenched in sweat on a cot and dimly aware of what had been happening around her. But her hearing had been sharp enough to hear Burke argue for her life.

"Thank you but I can't ask you to do that."

"Then don't…just accept the offer," he said, "We've all got to depend on each other and your medical skills and bad ass work ethic is what we need now."

She bit her lip because she'd worked hard in part to prove that he'd been right to fight for her life.

"But I can't take it easy Burke…"

He took a step closer to her.

"You will take it easy…starting with a good night's sleep because you're about to drop off your feet."

She did feel exhausted but they still had much work to do so she had to get back out there and…

"I mean it Reese," she said, "You had a hard day and you need plenty of sleep and so does your baby."

"But…"

He shook his head.

"In the bedroom now…"

This time she listened and walked into the room where the bed looked so inviting after months sleeping on the ground, in tents or even standing up. She crawled on top of it and he helped pull a sheet over her.

"I'll see you in the morning…"

Then he left the room and she closed her eyes trying so hard to keep the memories away but she knew as soon as she fell asleep she'd be right back in the middle of them.

Caesar had made up his mind and after a brief signing conversation with Alisa, she had agreed that when the situation settled down and was more organized in Seattle, that he would leave the city to further explore his own destiny.

He pecked her on the lips and then headed back to eat a bowl of fruit that she had prepared for him. She looked after him like that in little ways even as she stood by him when his leadership had been challenged by different factions in more recent days. Life had become more complicated than he thought possible. He thought when the apes won and the earth became there, the freedom of life would replace the struggle to get there. But instead he realized the real work had just begun.

It'd been much simpler when he'd been a baby living with Will and his father who had loved and raised him. Then there had been the female doctor who had become a focus in Will's life. The relationship between the two of them had baffled Caesar because it had been his introduction to human partnerships. But when he'd been shipped to the hell hole called a sanctuary, he had felt abandoned by the humans in his life, something he had never gotten over.

Which he knew now along with the cruelty he'd faced there had shaped his desire to lead the revolution, to unite all the other oppressed apes regardless of subspecies into a single unbeatable army. And they'd held their own against the humans until they had all started to die.

Will had already been dead and Caesar still carried that inside of him but he couldn't show the other apes that he had once known love from the species that had oppressed them. He hadn't known what had happened to the lady doctor who he had first met in his bedroom up in the attic of Will's house. Had she died too, most likely and did that mean that she and Will were together again? Caesar had some grasp of the concept of the human's belief in an afterlife and God but if the religion they followed allowed them to be lord and master of the apes then he didn't embrace it.

Not that it had done the humans much good because they'd killed themselves off into that afterlife.

Alisa returned with some beverage made out of juice and seeds that she'd made for him. He thought he had found the mate he'd share his life with including a family. But he still felt restless even after the battles had been fought and won. He needed that time to go find himself…he wasn't quite ape, definitely not human but somewhere in between.

And he had to go find out where that medium lie.

She slept and she dreamed of her old life. She and Will holding hands walking through a park with Caesar alongside them while Will answered his questions about his own origins. About the mother who had birthed him in secret and had been put to death simply for protecting her newborn.

Will hadn't been able to answer questions about his father, only to say that he must have been living in the African region where Caesar's mother had been captured while pregnant with him.

Chimpanzees carried their pregnancies in ways that kept them hidden, had been the scientific explanation provided by her. But for ever answer; Caesar just signed more questions for them. The answers became more painful and they finally left and went back home.

She knew and often told Will that Caesar had struggled with his identity, to determine where he fit in a world. It had been her suggestion to send him to the sanctuary to be with his own kind rather than have him stripped away after he'd attacked the neighbor. A decision she regretted more than any other, if she'd known that a duo of cruel sadists had been running it…but like Will, she'd believed the decisions she'd made for him had been with the best of intentions.

But good intentions had ended the world as she knew it…it had taken the man she loved away from her. She had no idea where Caesar lived now but she often thought of him, the fates of the remaining humans were interwoven with his kind.

What kind of world would be left for her baby?

She had to build some sort of future for him or her, from what had been left. Maybe Burke had meant it when he said he'd help her, that she wouldn't be left to face it alone. She had forever been robbed of sharing the news of her pregnancy with Will in what should have been an entirely different setting with the most complicated issue being how to furnish the nursery.

Not about being forced to fight for its survival by herself but as she started drifting off, she remembered happier times.

She heard someone knock on the doorway.

"Come in…"

It opened and Burke entered, having changed his own clothes and cleaned up. She still needed to do that but she'd been so exhausted last night.

"It's morning already?"

She stretched her arms as Burke leaned against the doorway.

"Sure is…how'd you sleep?"

She smiled at him.

"Really good…I feel much better."

"You up to some breakfast," he said, "They've got eggs in the mess. Powered but until we run into some hens…"

"It's fine…just let me get cleaned up," she said, getting out of bed, "I'm pretty hungry actually."

"Good because there's going to be a strategic meeting after breakfast…about how to fortify this place better."

She nodded gravely. They had to be prepared in case the apes did foray up into Canada. The softness left her face and she became all about business.

"We'd better get going then…"

And so they did.


	14. Chapter 14

Caesar supervised the work being done by the slaves at the plant and finally had been satisfied. The power would be turned on that part of the city within the day though the humans looked nearly dead on their feet.

No matter, they had served their purpose. The world no longer had a place for them except to work until they dropped dead. He'd asked Armando to increase their food to increase their work productivity until the power grid had been fixed but they could be transferred back to their cages and if they survived then in a day or two they could work on repairing the main lines so that water could be restored.

He'd learned through reading and observation that restoring a civilization's infrastructure would strengthen that society or any that replaced it. But the people who had those skills had died off for the most part.

He signed to Armando to power up the generators by the end of the day and see if it worked, then they could wait until tomorrow to begin on the water side. He'd sent Alisa out to the grocery stores which had been stripped bare of almost everything in the final frantic days of the plague.

People had been urged not to go out in public at all, since the killer virus had been airborne, tracing back to an outbreak in San Francisco. But it had spread like wildfire thanks to air traffic. They'd have to worry about foraging for their own food and then figuring out how to grow it themselves. The humans had left plenty of books and manuals behind on farming and Caesar had picked up several at an abandoned library.

He thought about the journey he felt drawn to take but knew he had a lot of work to do before he could seriously entertain taking off. But he remembered that day that Will had found him and his army in the forest and they had come to terms with what had happened. He knew that Will had tried so hard to make it right for him and when Will had in his last moments asked him to do something for him.

Caesar had been so consumed with rage at what had just happened that the man who raised him from infancy had been killed by his own kind for trying to save him. So his army had attacked the invading army with such fury that there hadn't been much left among the carnage to prove that there had once been humans there. He'd tried so hard to stop the apes from killing people but now, he thought they all deserved to die. They'd pretty much killed themselves off anyway.

Intelligence and all its gifts had been wasted on them. With the apes, it would be much different, the world would be better not worse for their rise to the top of the chain. But then again, it had been human intelligence and the best of intentions by one human that had led to his own evolution and that of those around him.

When he balanced that dichotomy in his mind, he remembered his promise. He fingered the chain he wore around his neck, his sole reminder of where he'd come from and what he needed to do with it.

One reason he'd decided to take his journey to do this one last thing for the human who had loved him and who had saved his life.

Armando and a cadre of gorillas had been putting the humans back in their cages without any resistance. Most of them appeared stupefied or at the very least numb to their new existences. Almost as if the shock of their sudden fall from grace had proven to be too much to comprehend. That or the virus that had sickened more than it killed had rendered them damaged.

Caesar left them and went to head back to his office thinking as always about the future.

She tried to sleep but the images rushed through her fast and furious…the deep shadows of the trees in the forest…the last time she saw Will and how she couldn't warn him that he had the military on his tail when he'd went to find Caesar and the apes. She'd tried so hard to stop him from rushing off but Will had been consumed with Caesar's belief that he had been betrayed by those that he loved. The forgiveness towards a father by his surrogate child superseded everything else.

When she kissed him goodbye then she hadn't known it would be forever…and that she'd be left alone for hours locked up inside a police car by the men who set out to murder Caesar and the apes.

Then Will hadn't come out of the forest, as she sat waiting for him to return but then again neither had the cadre of armed men who followed him. As the sky darkened into night, it dawned on her that she had been left alone.

So she'd taken matters in her own hand and found something to bash her way out of the car finally succeeding and then another team had been sent in and they found Will and then later the remains of the army torn to shreds by the ape army.

Will had been shot to death so his death had been at the hands of his own kind. She couldn't bring herself to look at him in death and she'd been dragged back to the city to be questioned around the clock by all types of suits who began an inquisition about the ape revolution and its origins leading back to the laboratory where Will had done his experiments to create the cure as it had been called back then.

She had met him later and by then he had shed some of his intensity, his edges softened by Caesar who had become the center of his life both professionally and personally.

But she imagined his death over and over again even if the details remained sketchy. If only she could have stopped him from going into the forest, but he'd been anguished by the thought that Caesar believed he'd betrayed him. He had to at least try to make him understand.

So she'd let him go and that had been it. And soon after his death, the rest of their species began to follow. The morgues at the local hospitals had filled up almost as quickly as the bed, the corridors and the emergency rooms. San Francisco had many hospitals but it hadn't been enough to stem the tide of death.

She hadn't time to mourn him because between being treated like the worst kind of criminal herself and even having her photo in the newspaper while it's still been publishing, everyone around her had started getting sick and dying. Why she didn't fall ill herself, even as she waited for the symptoms of the flu that turned deadly, she didn't know, she still didn't understand her apparent immunity.

A fluke of natural selection maybe but there had been pockets of others like her and she'd spent so much time tending to people she loved and had worked with that had fallen ill.

All to no avail.

"I have to know if he's forgiven me…"

She remembered those words that he'd said and she felt like trying to stop them and then when the men started following him…she couldn't stop them. The faces of the team that had been sent as a search party deep into the forest, ashen and trembling as the combat hardened men put the sight that greeted them into words.

"I…."

She felt someone shake her and thought it was one of the search party members but when she opened her eyes, she looked up and saw Burke sitting on the edge of her bed. She realized that perspiration soaked her sheets and her heart beat rapidly.

Then she felt the strong arms of a man around her, holding her close to him. The scent of him and the deep timbre of his voice in her ear…what was he saying?

"Hey…it's just a nightmare."

She shook her head.

"No…I tried to stop him from running into the forest but…he just wanted to make things right."

"Okay…that's fine but you've got to get back to sleep."

She resisted him and he eased the tension away from her by rubbing her back. It felt like what she'd needed for so long, the tactile sensation that she had pushed away since she'd lost him.

"I miss him so much…why did he have to go?"

Burke sighed, not knowing what she was talking about but he seemed to know what to say to her.

"He must have thought it mattered enough to do it," he said, "Sometimes the people we love don't choose the way we want and we have to live with it."

She heard some regret in his own voice and wondered what had put it there. No doubt they all had painful accounts of the last time they'd seen or talked to the people they had loved and lost. But right now, she ached for the man who would never see their child because he'd made a choice.

Earlier choices he'd made helped shape the downfall of humanity and that concept just proved to be overwhelming.

"We're all going to get through this…we're going to find our way," he said, "but you need to get some rest for you and that baby of yours."

She felt him lower her back on the bed and she didn't fight it. He pulled the damp sheets back and pulled a comforter over her body looking at her.

Her breathing became more regular as she felt the fatigue hit her again but she didn't want the dreams even if that were the only place he still lived. Burke sat on the edge of her bed and stayed with her until she drifted off to sleep again.

Burke tucked the comforter around her and then noticed that something had fallen on the floor beside the bed. He picked it up and saw a photo of the woman now asleep with a young man with the woods as their background. Both were smiling and had their arms around each other.

But something else had been in the photo as well.

A young chimpanzee.

He gazed at it for a while and suddenly everything began to make sense.


	15. Chapter 15

Caesar supervised the work being done by the slaves at the plant and finally had been satisfied. The power would be turned on that part of the city within the day though the humans looked nearly dead on their feet.

No matter, they had served their purpose. The world no longer had a place for them except to work until they dropped dead. He'd asked Armando to increase their food to increase their work productivity until the power grid had been fixed but they could be transferred back to their cages and if they survived then in a day or two they could work on repairing the main lines so that water could be restored.

He'd learned through reading and observation that restoring a civilization's infrastructure would strengthen that society or any that replaced it. But the people who had those skills had died off for the most part.

He signed to Armando to power up the generators by the end of the day and see if it worked, then they could wait until tomorrow to begin on the water side. He'd sent Alisa out to the grocery stores which had been stripped bare of almost everything in the final frantic days of the plague.

People had been urged not to go out in public at all, since the killer virus had been airborne, tracing back to an outbreak in San Francisco. But it had spread like wildfire thanks to air traffic. They'd have to worry about foraging for their own food and then figuring out how to grow it themselves. The humans had left plenty of books and manuals behind on farming and Caesar had picked up several at an abandoned library.

He thought about the journey he felt drawn to take but knew he had a lot of work to do before he could seriously entertain taking off. But he remembered that day that Will had found him and his army in the forest and they had come to terms with what had happened. He knew that Will had tried so hard to make it right for him and when Will had in his last moments asked him to do something for him.

Caesar had been so consumed with rage at what had just happened that the man who raised him from infancy had been killed by his own kind for trying to save him. So his army had attacked the invading army with such fury that there hadn't been much left among the carnage to prove that there had once been humans there. He'd tried so hard to stop the apes from killing people but now, he thought they all deserved to die. They'd pretty much killed themselves off anyway.

Intelligence and all its gifts had been wasted on them. With the apes, it would be much different, the world would be better not worse for their rise to the top of the chain. But then again, it had been human intelligence and the best of intentions by one human that had led to his own evolution and that of those around him.

When he balanced that dichotomy in his mind, he remembered his promise. He fingered the chain he wore around his neck, his sole reminder of where he'd come from and what he needed to do with it.

One reason he'd decided to take his journey to do this one last thing for the human who had loved him and who had saved his life.

Armando and a cadre of gorillas had been putting the humans back in their cages without any resistance. Most of them appeared stupefied or at the very least numb to their new existences. Almost as if the shock of their sudden fall from grace had proven to be too much to comprehend. That or the virus that had sickened more than it killed had rendered them damaged.

Caesar left them and went to head back to his office thinking as always about the future.

She tried to sleep but the images rushed through her fast and furious…the deep shadows of the trees in the forest…the last time she saw Will and how she couldn't warn him that he had the military on his tail when he'd went to find Caesar and the apes. She'd tried so hard to stop him from rushing off but Will had been consumed with Caesar's belief that he had been betrayed by those that he loved. The forgiveness towards a father by his surrogate child superseded everything else.

When she kissed him goodbye then she hadn't known it would be forever…and that she'd be left alone for hours locked up inside a police car by the men who set out to murder Caesar and the apes.

Then Will hadn't come out of the forest, as she sat waiting for him to return but then again neither had the cadre of armed men who followed him. As the sky darkened into night, it dawned on her that she had been left alone.

So she'd taken matters in her own hand and found something to bash her way out of the car finally succeeding and then another team had been sent in and they found Will and then later the remains of the army torn to shreds by the ape army.

Will had been shot to death so his death had been at the hands of his own kind. She couldn't bring herself to look at him in death and she'd been dragged back to the city to be questioned around the clock by all types of suits who began an inquisition about the ape revolution and its origins leading back to the laboratory where Will had done his experiments to create the cure as it had been called back then.

She had met him later and by then he had shed some of his intensity, his edges softened by Caesar who had become the center of his life both professionally and personally.

But she imagined his death over and over again even if the details remained sketchy. If only she could have stopped him from going into the forest, but he'd been anguished by the thought that Caesar believed he'd betrayed him. He had to at least try to make him understand.

So she'd let him go and that had been it. And soon after his death, the rest of their species began to follow. The morgues at the local hospitals had filled up almost as quickly as the bed, the corridors and the emergency rooms. San Francisco had many hospitals but it hadn't been enough to stem the tide of death.

She hadn't time to mourn him because between being treated like the worst kind of criminal herself and even having her photo in the newspaper while it's still been publishing, everyone around her had started getting sick and dying. Why she didn't fall ill herself, even as she waited for the symptoms of the flu that turned deadly, she didn't know, she still didn't understand her apparent immunity.

A fluke of natural selection maybe but there had been pockets of others like her and she'd spent so much time tending to people she loved and had worked with that had fallen ill.

All to no avail.

"I have to know if he's forgiven me…"

She remembered those words that he'd said and she felt like trying to stop them and then when the men started following him…she couldn't stop them. The faces of the team that had been sent as a search party deep into the forest, ashen and trembling as the combat hardened men put the sight that greeted them into words.

"I…."

She felt someone shake her and thought it was one of the search party members but when she opened her eyes, she looked up and saw Burke sitting on the edge of her bed. She realized that perspiration soaked her sheets and her heart beat rapidly.

Then she felt the strong arms of a man around her, holding her close to him. The scent of him and the deep timbre of his voice in her ear…what was he saying?

"Hey…it's just a nightmare."

She shook her head.

"No…I tried to stop him from running into the forest but…he just wanted to make things right."

"Okay…that's fine but you've got to get back to sleep."

She resisted him and he eased the tension away from her by rubbing her back. It felt like what she'd needed for so long, the tactile sensation that she had pushed away since she'd lost him.

"I miss him so much…why did he have to go?"

Burke sighed, not knowing what she was talking about but he seemed to know what to say to her.

"He must have thought it mattered enough to do it," he said, "Sometimes the people we love don't choose the way we want and we have to live with it."

She heard some regret in his own voice and wondered what had put it there. No doubt they all had painful accounts of the last time they'd seen or talked to the people they had loved and lost. But right now, she ached for the man who would never see their child because he'd made a choice.

Earlier choices he'd made helped shape the downfall of humanity and that concept just proved to be overwhelming.

"We're all going to get through this…we're going to find our way," he said, "but you need to get some rest for you and that baby of yours."

She felt him lower her back on the bed and she didn't fight it. He pulled the damp sheets back and pulled a comforter over her body looking at her.

Her breathing became more regular as she felt the fatigue hit her again but she didn't want the dreams even if that were the only place he still lived. Burke sat on the edge of her bed and stayed with her until she drifted off to sleep again.

Burke tucked the comforter around her and then noticed that something had fallen on the floor beside the bed. He picked it up and saw a photo of the woman now asleep with a young man with the woods as their background. Both were smiling and had their arms around each other.

But something else had been in the photo as well.

A young chimpanzee.

He gazed at it for a while and suddenly everything began to make sense.


	16. Chapter 16

She did as she promised him, she saw the doctor when they arrived at a small camp filled with about two dozen survivors. Two of which had never gotten sick from the plague and the others had been left with various levels of damage.

But first, there had been hours of working alongside them to get the pumps of a couple of wells working again so they could have fresh water flowing from the taps of the structures there. The few buildings had fallen in various stages of abandon and disrepair having been left at some point when the plague had been at its most intense as it swept from the United States

She dug in there alongside Burke and the leader, an older woman named Ruth who had once been a school teacher and part time mayor of a town about 20 miles that had been burned to the ground by the last of those to die, in hopes that burning the bodies of those infected would spare them the same fate. A few of them lined up to push a wheel which had rusted shut from some rains that had fallen recently and after some intense pushing, it began to moan and then squeal as it released a flow of water.

"I think that will do it," Ruth said, "We'll need to boil it for a while to make sure it's safe until I can run some tests."

She had rudimentary equipment good enough to check the water for parasites like giarrdia and bacteria as well. But they'd been boiling water for weeks anyway taken from a local stream.

"If the apes decide to pay us a visit," she continued, "We have some defense against them. Guns, some explosives but so far…"

Burke nodded.

"They're keeping their nucleus tight in various pockets of America," he said, "and I imagine in other places around the world as well."

Reese spoke up.

"Have you ever seen them fight," she said, "They're so strong, so fast though at first they just were trying to get some place safe."

Before…they had decided that humans weren't worth anything but either being dead or enslaved. She still didn't know what had turned the tide but the slaughter in the woods had been so much different than what had happened on the bridge. Men ripped apart by the strength of adult primates in a fit of rage, all except for Will.

Burke looked at her and she glanced away but she'd seen it first hand when it first went down at its epicenter. Before it spread outward like water rippling after a rock dropped in its center.

Ruth sighed.

"We got reports of uprisings everywhere," she said, "Most were very violent and not very long but when the plague hit, those battles stopped. If we hadn't destroyed ourselves, we might have won."

Reese just shook her head mostly to herself. She knew that Caesar and his army would have never given up until they prevailed. When Will had died, Caesar had lost his remaining link to the species that had raised him.

"They'll populate the earth while our numbers continue to fall," Ruth said, "Hard to believe actually being alive to witness the conquest of one species by another."

Burke shook his head.

"That's not going to happen," he said, "We've still got all that technology…we just have to get access to it and use it against them while they're still trying to figure out a very steep learning curve."

Not so steep, Reese knew, she'd seen firsthand how adept Caesar had been at developing intellectually even though for most of the time she hadn't known the truth. When Will finally told her she had told him exactly what she'd thought about his haphazard research trying to get him to listen.

"They'll adapt quickly enough," she said, "while we're trying to scramble to survive. We've traded places with a species that's only a couple degrees separated from us on the evolutionary scale."

She felt the scientist of old, who'd made a career out of studying apes reemerge. Burke watched her but she focused on Ruth.

"Their numbers are thin…but with the plague taking out probably over 95% of us, that'll even the scales."

Ruth shook her head.

"Whoever thought they could play God, I'd kill them myself if I ever got my hands on them."

Reese heard the very familiar anger and resentment inside the woman who after all, had been thrust in a nightmare like the rest of them. Maybe those who had succumbed to the plague had been spared not those who were still alive.

She didn't know what she was going to do, and what kind of world awaited for her baby to be born and grow up in. She felt overwhelmed suddenly with emotion that she'd been left alone to raise it, that Will had been taken, that he had chosen to run after Caesar in the woods leaving her. But she couldn't succumb to the despair that threatened to overtake her, she had to keep mining the strength to survive.

Caesar had often involved himself in discussions through signing about what to do with the humans they encountered. Most of them wound up in cages rather than were killed in battle because when the virus wiped out most of their numbers, many of those that remained had been weakened enough to lose their will to resist the new order. Those enslaved worked hard until they dropped, and at first they had lost large numbers of them because they'd forgotten the basics like feeding and watering them.

So they'd thrown food in their cages and watered them down with the hose which lowered their resistance even further. When Caesar and the apes had been treated like that, it had taken their supersized intellect to prod them into rebellion.

Caesar had known kindness from his human family but then one day, he'd been driven off by Will and the female vet to a facility and just abandoned to cruelty. He had harbored resentment towards Will and that had fed his drive for revolution but somehow in the woods, when he and Will met up and Will had asked him for his forgiveness, something had changed inside of him.

He had considered that there might be a chance for him and the apes to coexist with the humans. But then the military forces that had tailed Will had shown him otherwise. If it hadn't been for Will, he'd be dead. But Caesar's apes had attacked the army with the greatest ferocity and there hadn't been any survivors to crawl back and provide an accounting to the other humans.

Leaving the quiet of the forest around him and a few moments for him and Will to say their goodbyes…but then what Will had asked him. He didn't know if he could respond. He had moved on from that first battle and now, he and the other apes were trying to get one city back up and functioning just like their counterparts were doing in other places loosely knit together by the messengers.

"Kill them…"

Caesar looked up at the chimp's signing, recognizing the one that had been liberated from the lab that born him. He signed no more killing. Need workers to build cities.

The other ape just waved his hand dismissively and went back to his corner apart from the rest of the group as he always did. Caesar knew he had to watch him carefully because if their movement splintered, it might be surrounding him. But Caesar remained stronger.

The bonobos who had crashed the impromptu meeting still signed, negotiate, work, build together but Caesar remained too jaded to ever allow that to happen. After watching humans kill a human to get at him, he'd been more than happy to see them dwindle in numbers through their own actions.

They weren't fit to rule any longer and the apes would take their places all over the planet, leaving it in much better hands. After all, ape would never destroy ape.

And that would become their very first law.

Reese slipped her clothes back on, relieved to feel less exposed than she just did during her examination by a man who looked too young to be a doctor. But he had just finished his residency when the plague broke in Fargo North Dakota leaving him and a couple other doctors to cope with the stream of plague victims that had quickly turned into a flood.

When he had finally left Fargo in the dead of night, it had become a ghost town.

"So what's your verdict?"

He filled out some notes on a piece of paper and ripped it off.

"You're definitely pregnant," he said, "Nearly three months along give or take a couple of weeks."

She nodded and then asked the question that had weighed on her.

"Is the baby…all right?"

He smiled despite being all serious during the exam.

"Just fine…nice and healthy," he said, "Of course you were a bit sketchy on the family history."

She adjusted her shirt with her hands.

"The father's not here…he died."

"The plague…?"

"Yeah…that."

"Any known medical conditions that he had," he said, "Any risk factors on his side of the family?"

"His father died of Alzheimer's but I guess it's too soon to worry about that."

The doctor couldn't argue with that, but he reached for a bottle of what looked like vitamins.

"I lifted this during our last pharmacy run," he said, "Take one a day, get plenty of good food, fresh if possible and rest."

She nodded and reached for her pack.

"Thanks…what do I owe you?"

He lifted his hands.

"It's on the house," he said, "though I'd like to see you in a couple of months…if you're still here."

She didn't feel that she could make definitive plans but she nodded.

"We'll see what the future holds."

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"For you, it's a baby that's going to be born in a very different world."

She rubbed her abdomen.

"I know that…sometimes it's really hard because I didn't plan on it happening, it just did and with Will…him gone…"

He looked at her kindly.

"These are times when we're going to have to depend on each other," he said, "I'm glad that your settlement's going to network with ours that will make us all a little less alone."

She agreed and Burke had been doing his best to help her. She didn't know why but she didn't' question it.

In fact, when she said goodbye to the doctor, Burke was outside talking to Ruth and she walked up to him. He asked her how it went.

"Baby's fine…and he just gave me a couple things I got to do."

Burke nodded.

"Well we're going to get some food and I dug up a place for you to get some sleep," he said, "work slows down here in the afternoon and picks up in the early evening."

She nodded feeling suddenly tired.

"I was so worried…about the baby…I mean when I got sick…"

He took a couple of his fingers and tilted her face up to look at him.

"Hey everything's going to be just fine," he said, "We've still got a lot to figure out but I think we've made some ground today."

She agreed, finding the people nice. Ruth directed them to their mess tent and they walked over, and when he slid his arm around her shoulder, she didn't say anything.


	17. Chapter 17

Caesar had to break up a fight between an orangutan and a gorilla over the treatment of a young girl who had broken from the line of slaves working at a stable where some horses had been discovered. She had been sleeping in the stable in a small room when the apes arrived to take them.

They had discovered that horses ran fast and that they could be directed by those who rode on their backs. Caesar had remembered that from programs he'd watched on television while growing up in Will's attic. And he'd ridden before back on the day that they'd left San Francisco.

But the girl had been frightened when she'd woken up and seen large apes wandering around opening stall doors and leading horses out while Caesar had instructed others on how to put bridles on them.

The horses had gone wide eyed and bucked when they saw the apes but he noticed that at least they'd been healthy. There had been some grain left but the alfalfa had started to rot.

When the girl saw them, she ran out of her hiding place to grab one of the horses away from them, a dappled mare and one of the gorillas had struck her with his arm, sending her flying in the air. The plucky girl who had hair the color of straw and a pinched face got up and started back to the horse. This time two of the gorillas had grabbed her and as the one with the silvery hair on his back decided to snap her neck, Caesar had rushed up to stop him.

Signing "children no kill to the gorillas.

One of them signed back. "children adult kill apes"

Caesar sighed and tried to think of a response to match the gorillas' rudimentary signing skills and then an orangutan intervened.

"Child cage zoo."

Now that had been an idea Caesar considered, after all apes including their young had been kept in caged exhibits in zoos and in the sanctuary where Will had sent him. They'd be fed in their cages of course and given shelter and some toys to play with to entertain the apes.

But the girl just looked at the apes defiance in her eyes, her attention still on the mare and when she leapt again, Caesar had to block the gorillas from grabbing her again.

"No zoo…"

So he gestured at some chimpanzees who'd been watching the exchange to grab the girl and take her to the zoo.

"Girl feed lions"

Caesar shot that chimpanzee a look and shook his head no before they grabbed her and took her kicking and screaming away to the zoo. That problem solved, he turned back to the matter of getting them some horses. For one thing, it would improve the speed of messages traveling through the new world.

He couldn't forget his first time on horseback, an impromptu act but what freedom to take off at a gallop with the wind against your face, to serve as master over another species for a change. Horses did as they were directed to do without complaint and soon humans would too.

He chose a chestnut horse with a splash of white on its face, which stood there trembling but not trying to escape. He approached it slowly and allowed it to get used to his scent before reaching out to stroke its face. The other apes just looked at him wondering why he took such a subtle approach to an inferior creature but Caesar knew that the horse had its own physical strength and he didn't want to fight it.

Another ape handed him a bridle and he moved forward to put it on, and after some careful handling within minutes he had swung up on the horse's back and started riding through Seattle.

The streets were deserted and littered with the kind of clutter that only comes when a society is being abandoned. As it must have been the final weeks before the curtain closed on humanity's dominance of the planet. It hadn't been his intention to inherit the earth at all but to share it.

He tried to explain that to Will before the armed men appeared behind him. Will's face told him that he hadn't been aware that he'd been followed.

Now that the plague had dwindled their numbers, Caesar knew that the world belonged to his kind, at least until they made the same mistakes as their former masters. He remembered those who had engineered the revolution, Jacobs the corporate head who had been consumed by greed when he realized the future highlighted by Will's serum. Dodge the sadistic handler at the facility where he'd been dumped who just had to die.

Greed, cruelty had no place in the new society, but Caesar already saw cracks in his vision of an idyllic utopia for apes to live in freedom. He didn't know what to do about them because most of the apes had never known the concepts of love in their own lives and at least he had that until the betrayal.

So he knew he had to be on guard for those among the apes that might want to run a society based on the same human values that they had renounced.

And be prepared to take action if that happened.

They returned to the small dwelling after dinner and she sat in a chair next to a rudimentary table that looked like in better times it had served another purpose. Burke dwarfed his chair, being built like an ox. Ruth had offered them some supplies to take back including medicine and they had offered them some tools from the campground to help them maintain the generators and water pumps. Enough fuel had been stored in underground tanks to keep them busy for some months. But as the technology and supplies which fueled it continued to degrade in upcoming months and years, canned goods spoiled and medicines went bad, they had to start looking more at the production side of what they needed to survive.

She knew the apes in their own society would face similar challenges.

"We'll have to get up early to head back tomorrow."

Burke had been all business at the dinner meeting which cemented relations between them and Ruth's people. He'd treated her with respect which told Reese he had no problems with female leaders or scientists for that matter.

"I told them what to do if they do decide to raise beef cattle," she said, "It's not my specialty but I know the basics."

"You get along with the doctor all right?"

She nodded, leaning back in her chair.

"He said the baby's doing well," she said, "I think he's doing better than the mother."

Fatigue when it came over her freed up her other emotions usually reined in by her defenses but she'd been so relieved that the baby had been thriving inside of her that she'd almost forgot about keeping that side of her hidden. Emotions that stemmed from her old life had no purpose anymore not if she had a future to think about for her and her child. But it didn't mean that she didn't have her moments of weakness.

"It's not easy and it's going to be," he said, "Everything's different now but that doesn't mean it's not going to work out once we figure out what to do."

She ran her hand through her hair after removing the tie.

"I know…most of the time but there are things I miss so much," she said, "I miss people…friends…my baby's father."

Her voice caught at the end of her sentence. She squeezed her eyes shut to not think about the last time she saw him.

"Things were difficult even before it happened," she said, "He was haunted by some of the decisions he made."

A long silence came up between them but it didn't feel uncomfortable to her as she tried to push those memories back where they belonged.

Then Burke broke it with an unexpected question.

"Why did he do it?"

She looked at him suddenly, her eyes in question.

"Who…who did what?"

He sighed and suddenly she knew but still she waited for him to speak.

"I saw the photo of you together with that scientist who started this whole mess and some ape."

She blinked her eyes and felt bitterness rise in her throat.

"That was Caesar when he was younger," she said, "before he started having problems."

Burke nodded remembering that this chimpanzee had been the ringleader in the rampage through San Francisco.

"And the man was that scientists…Will…the one who invented the cure as it was called…some cure…"

She heard the bitterness in his voice but she couldn't blame him.

"He was trying to find a way to fix the brain, a cure for Alzheimer's disease because his father had it."

Burke sighed, folding his arms.

"He stole an ape from the lab."

She shook her head.

"No, he saved him. They were going to kill Caesar along with his mother after they thought she had gone violent because of the protocol she'd been given but she'd just been protecting her baby."

"But he kept the ape didn't he?"

She nodded, rubbing her arms with her hands.

"He raised him from infancy," she said, "I met him when he got hurt. Not badly but I didn't know anything about him. I thought he was a pet."

Burke digested what she told him and she waited, poised to react if necessary. She ha known this day would come but didn't know how he'd react.

"But he wasn't…he was as smart as you or I. Too damn smart."

She sighed.

"He told me later on and I told him I thought he'd messed with nature in a way that wasn't right but he was so sure he'd done the right thing. I don't think we ever really agreed on that point."

"But you loved him."

She lifted her chin.

"Yes I did very much and I loved Caesar too," she said, "I just didn't know that the place where we sent him after he injured a neighbor was so awful in how it treated them."

Burke sighed and shook his head.

"How could someone be so reckless and mess with something they had no business…and make the rest of humanity pay for it?"

She heard the anger in his voice and steeled herself for more of it.

"He didn't do it for himself or where it could take him," she said, "It was always about his father. He'd admired him his whole life and didn't want to lose him."

"What about the plague," he said, "That came from the same laboratory as this cure didn't it?"

She hesitated and then she nodded.

"I still don't know what it was," she said, "but I'd heard that they were pushing a more aggressive protocol that would produce faster results."

"Oh god…I never understood scientists thinking they could play god with the rest of us."

She sighed preparing to get up.

"Look I know this is a shock," she said, "but if you don't want me to go back with you, I can stay here. I don't know if they'll understand any better but you've been really good to me, you saved my life and I guess I owe you back."'

She walked over to get her bag and put some stuff inside it. He watched her.

"Where the hell are you going?"

She looked at him.

"I told you I'll stay here if my being here is a reminder of what destroyed the world."

He sighed and got up to grab her arm.

"No…I don't want you to go," he said, "We can't hold each other's lives in the past world against each other and you've worked harder than anyone else to pull your weight."

"I've just done what was needed."

"We need you and your skills," he said, "and you need us too, you and that little one. You can't help who his father is…"

She glared at him suddenly.

"I loved his father and if that's too much for you, then this conversation is over."

She grabbed her bag and she left the dwelling leaving him in her wake.


	18. Chapter 18

He found her asleep later in an area off of the medical clinic where Ruth had been working with the young doctor, Glen who was poring over some blood samples under a microscope.

They looked up when Burke entered the clinic and Ruth smiled at him.

"She's asleep over there," she said, "please don't disturb her. She worked a couple of hours with us processing some samples."

Burke furrowed his brows.

"What you working on?"

Glen gestured over to him and let him look through the microscope. Burke looked through it and saw some oval objects that looked like capsules.

"What are they?"

They're a marker that came up with some blood samples of some plague victims," Glen said, "The virus killed its victims so fast it finally burned out but it went through a lot of populations first."

Burke scratched his head.

"Yeah one day people thought they had a bad cold," he said, "by the end of the day they were bleeding out through every orifice like hemorrhagic fever."

Glen nodded.

"Yes we think the virus is related to Ebola in Africa near Zaire but how it wound up in our country, that's a mystery."

Burke sighed.

"No it's not, it's called science playing god," he said, "that virus was part of some medical experiment or bio weapons program. They were doing all kinds of experiments before this one got loose."

"Well it originated in the western coast of the United States but given how connected the world is through its aviation network it spread in a matter of weeks."

Burke remembered the blurbs he'd caught on the fly on the radio about how it all seemed so localized at first, then it was contained and then cities were on lockdown and then it had broken quarantine.

He suspected the government either had been so overwhelmed by the virility of its own creation or it had played down the seriousness to avoid a panic overwhelming the cities' infrastructures.

Panic had broken out everywhere anyway but most people were dead before they could take it very far.

"So most that got infected had no hope," Burke said, "they were doomed from the time of infection."

Glen adjusted his microscope and put another slide beneath it.

"Yes, about 90% or more of the world's population," he said, "That's just a guess but then there was a smaller number of people who got infected and survived but not without permanent damage."

Burke had seen those individuals a lot in the past couple of months. They were still alive and could perform most functions but they'd lost their sharpness, some of their cognition just enough to be noticeable.

But then there were others like himself who hadn't gotten sick at all and Glen and Ruth, what about them?

"I didn't get sick…and what about you two," he said, "You look healthy to me."

Ruth sighed.

"I don't know why I didn't get it," she said, "I tended many people who were sick including most of the people in my neighborhood."

Glen shrugged.

"There's a lot we still don't know," he said, "I checked our blood for markers and nothing came up…except those who were sick and recovered more or less have anti-bodies but it's not clear whether or not they're out of the woods…or us for that matter."

Burke frowned.

"But I thought you said the virus burned itself out."

"Maybe it's still lingering in some of the bodies," he said, "The Spanish Flu was discovered in some bodies of those who died from it in the early 20th century."

"God, we really did get ourselves in a mess here," he said, "I wonder how much longer we have before we're wiped out."

Ruth looked at Glen.

"We don't know that and there were some interesting things found," she said, "Glen show him."

The doctor nodded and directed him to a microscope.

"Here was a sample I took today," he said, "See the diamond looking particles next to the intact red blood cells?"

Burke looked at them and nodded.

"What are they?"

"I don't know," Glen said, "First time I've seen them but the sample came from someone who didn't get sick."

"Are they part of the immune system?"

Glen shrugged.

"Maybe…they might not be part of hers."

Burke looked up and frowned.

"So they came from someplace else, some other source?"

"Possibly," Glen said, "I might have to ask this subject more questions to figure out what made her different."

"Her?"

"Yes, the blood came from that young woman who was with you," Glen said, "The pregnant one."

Burke looked over where she slept, unaware of the discussion taking place and he just shook his head.

Maurice had returned after they dealt with the horses and signed to Caesar that they needed to decide whether or not to send their scouts on horseback.

Caesar had been practicing his rudimentary speaking skills in front of a mirror and looked at Maurice who no longer looked surprised when he used speech.

"Horses ready go?"

Maurice signed back.

"Need practice riding"

Caesar figured as much. He had taught himself how to ride horses just by watching how the humans rode them while they attacked the apes on the bridge. How hard could it be? But he knew he had to be patient. The scouting would be important and they had thought of going east to some place called Boise…on a map. He didn't know why that would be a good place but he'd been eager to explore some of their new territory.

"Go tell practice"

Maurice left him again and Caesar wondered if he could lead one of those scouting missions. He'd been the de facto leader though that one ape Kobas had challenged him on several occasions.

He didn't know what motivated the ape who had been one of Will's test subjects in the lab years past the time of Caesar's mother. Huge for a chimpanzee and wily even before he had received the serum he had a murderous streak inside him that belied even the way he'd been treated in the laboratory. Caesar knew that most of the apes had been given a different serum than he did, what he had stolen from Will's home while he'd been sleeping.

Did it make them act differently? He didn't know but he knew that he had to find a way to deal with Kobas and the impressive muscle he'd put on display. The gorillas had laughed at him at first until he sparred with a couple of them and knocked them flat.

Most of the time he kept his distance from everyone else unless he wanted something….but he could be trying to build his own alliances while Caesar wasn't there to watch him.

He wondered if humans had struggled with the same doubts about the intentions of those who fought alongside them. That was the part of creating a new society that he didn't much like.

Then Armando came rushing in to tell him that Kobas had grabbed hold of one of the horses to go riding towards the zoo.

Where they'd been keeping some of the humans.

Caesar sighed, knowing that the remaining humans weren't worth any empathy given that only a handful had ever been kind to him and he'd watched as one of them had been mowed down in front of him by his own kind.

With that, what was left of any affinity he had for the species his kind had replaced, was gone.

But at the same time, he didn't want a society founded on indiscriminate slaughter so he went to find a horse to cut off Kobas at the pass.

Burke sat in a chair looking out the window into the rain that had started falling an hour earlier. Ruth and Glen had settled in for the night and another woman, Lara had been watching over the handful of patients.

Reese had been asleep but now she stirred in her sleep and he knew she wasn't here, she was back in her past.

He'd been where he'd came from in his own sleep more than once. It hadn't been all nightmares of those final weeks but some happy times intertwined just enough to leave him bittersweet. He's already lost everything he had before he'd even heard of genetically enhanced apes or a plague and given how much time he had spent in chaotic war zones, the fact that a war had come home to him didn't make much difference.

Not that he hadn't done everything he could to fight the tide of the virus when it arrived in his backyard but by then, it couldn't be stopped…not that it could have ever been stopped once it had escaped.

He heard her call a name and she knew it was the scientist but he turned around to see her sitting up in the cot.

"What…"

"I came looking for you," he said, "Just to make sure you were all right."

She relaxed and rubbed her forehead.

"I'm fine…I went to the clinic and helped them for a while."

"They told me," He said, "They also said to let you sleep."

She sat cross legged on the bed, watching him.

"I guess I was pretty tired," she said, "but I feel better."

He sat down next to her in a chair.

"I'm sorry what I said earlier," he said, "I had no right…"

She shrugged.

"You had every right," she said, "I know how angry everyone is with what he did…but he quit just before what happened on the bridge. Jacobs, his boss wanted him to push a protocol he knew was dangerous."

"The virus…"

She looked uncertain.

"I don't know. One of his assistants got exposed to a test product and he wasn't quarantined, just sent home. Later, they found that he died but before then…he must have exposed a lot of people."

"That's how plagues start," he said, "and this one became a pandemic within 72 hours."

She sighed.

"Everyone around me just got horribly sick," she said, "Like a virus you'd see in the jungles of Africa, not in downtown San Francisco."

"I know I treated dozens myself," he said, "but the time for stopping it had long past."

She looked sad to him then.

"I know if Will knew that it was going to kill people he would have ordered the testing to be stopped immediately."

Burke just shook his head.

"But he still created it," he said, "If it didn't exist, there would be nothing to stop."

"I know…and if he were alive now, I don't know what he'd think, or what he'd do," she said, "He'd already felt guilty about what happened with Caesar…this…"

Burke digested that and he knew that the woman in front of him had loved deeply and lost just as he had and the one she loved had been as flawed as anyone else.

Except that he had also engineered the destruction of the world.

"The best of intentions meets the worst of executions."

She looked up at surprise when hearing that and she didn't look like she'd argue against it.

"So you had a lot to deal with after the apes took over the Golden Gate Bridge?"

She chuckled then without mirth.

"Yeah well, I had to go on without him and try not to hate my own kind for what they did to him," she said, "I'm not sure what happened but he was shot to death, not maimed by the apes."

Burke had his own theories and felt sure she did as well. Will had to make a choice in those woods and his decision had been Caesar.

"The city fell apart at the seams soon after so many people became ill," she said, "I left the house I shared with him to tend to those I worked with at the zoo but no matter what I did, they all died. Soon I was the only one left."

She'd run into Burke several weeks after that and they had made it to this point, not sure what would come next.

He moved to sit next to her on the cot. She glanced at him sideways.

"So now that I know some of your back story," he said, "How about you telling me your real name?"

Her brows furrowed but he just waited patiently.

"Okay…I will," she said, "It's Caroline."


	19. Chapter 19

Caesar had grabbed a palomino gelding and had taken off at a gallop down Seattle's deserted streets towards the zoo. He didn't know how much time he had to get there before Kobas started on in the humans that had been caged there. Right behind him was Armando who signed something about how he was glad to be a gorilla not a chimp. Caesar just shook his head and directed him to ride with him.

Armando got on the horse after two failed attempts and took off down the street holding onto the animal for dear life. He hadn't trusted them, wanting to invest more time trying to figure out how to use the abandoned cars. But Caesar knew that right now it might be easier to use horses given how many streets in the centre had been cluttered by cars that appeared to have been abandoned while in gridlock traffic as residents tried to flee the city to outrun the plague on their heels.

Some of the cars still had the remains of people in some cases families inside of them, rotting quickly in the humidity of the city to shriveled up flesh and bones. Caesar noticed some of them bent over the steering wheels and knew that while his kind had benefited from the demise of humanity, it must not repeat its mistakes.

And the dying culture had been steeped heavily on the commission of violence. Once outside Will's household, all Caesar had seen was violence, against him and the apes but humans didn't appear to have any solidarity among themselves. But he knew that he had the capacity for violence inside of them, discovering that when he had attacked the next door neighbor who had harassed Will's father.

He'd become more familiar with that side of himself since.

Caesar continued riding, urging the horse on faster until they reached the gates of the zoo. He looked behind him to make sure Armando hadn't fallen off his horse before going inside. Trash and broken kiosks littered the front of the zoo and many of the animals had either escaped or had perished from starvation.

But some of them still lived including the big cats, lions, tigers and jaguars. Caesar knew that Kobas had been thinking about using the humans to feed them, but the humans were housed in an exhibit cage on the other side from the felines.

Some commotion came from up ahead. He saw that a giraffe had been released from its pen and a couple of zebras. Some younger chimpanzees that had been liberated from the zoo had tried to climb on the zebras but were getting bucked off.

He looked ahead and saw Kobas and two other chimpanzees leading two humans including the little girl from the stable towards the direction of the big cats' habitats. He rushed up to stand in his path.

Kobas glared at him, already in challenge, his hands gripping the arm of the young girl. Caesar made himself taller back and his eyes bore into those of the other ape.

"Where go humans?"

Kobas let go of the girl who just stood there dazed and signed back.

"Tiger hungry go feed"

Kobas hadn't embraced signing like the other apes had done once Maurice and a couple others including a female gorilla taught the others. But he knew how to communicate and if he said he was going to feed the humans to the tiger, he intended to do it.

Caesar signed back.

"No feed go back."

Kobas didn't like that order and became more agitated. Caesar wondered if he was going to have to fight him again. The other chimpanzee was larger, more aggressive and Caesar sensed that he'd developed differently than the rest of them. Something about him…a malice that lived behind his good eye that always waited.

But he had a more immediate problem. What Kobas intended to do right now. He had to stop him if only to maintain control of their group.

"Tiger go feed"

Kobas then grabbed the girl and another human again and he and the other chimpanzees headed towards the tiger's cage. Caesar looked at Armando and knew he had to work fast.

So he scampered up a leafy tree and swung on a couple branches over Kobas before dropping down on top of him.

Kobas grunted and twisted his body but released the humans. He then bared his teeth at Caesar and tried to grab him. But Caesar deftly moved out of the way of his hands and then leapt on top of Kobas and they went rolling on the ground, a flurry of furry bodies while the other apes watched.

They knew better than to get involved in this fight, one that had begun the first day that the two chimpanzees had met. They had been able to put aside their rivalry when they both have a common adversary but now that the humans had taken themselves out of the equation, they only had each other to fight for the role of the leader of the new civilization.

Kobas had the brawn because Caesar was wirier in build but quick on his feet. He had more time to develop fitness then an ape like Kobas who had spent so much time caged.

They grappled across the ground, knocking over some trash receptacles and crashing into bushes. Caesar got on top of the larger ape and pinned him to the ground, baring his teeth near him and Kobas glared back at him.

They remained locked in combat until finally Kobas looked away and shrugged off Caesar who got off of him.

Before he stood tall and signed to the defeated ape

"Return humans cages."

That done, he went forward to tackle the next challenge of creating a new civilization that had already picked up traits of the one that birthed it.

Caroline packed up her bag filled with medical supplies to take back to their own camp. She felt better having met up with Ruth, Glen and the others and they would prove to be good allies in their own struggle to regroup and figure out what to do next in a world that had turned upside down so quickly.

Ruth had asked her questions about her background because of what had been found in her blood but she couldn't provide much in the way of answers. She'd been born in India but had done time studying chimpanzees in Africa while working on her thesis before going to get her vet's degree in England. She had then worked a series of research jobs in the United States and Europe before landing her position at a zoo in San Francisco.

Nothing unique that she could think of to explain why she'd not gotten sick from the plague but she did promise to return for future examination and studies in the future. She knew like the others that if they could figure out why some were immune to it, and others partially immune, they might figure out a way to combat it if it ever returned in a different form.

It couldn't hold its lethality for long before ensuring its own instinction. It would have to dial down its virility to survive at some point. But it had nearly succeeded in rending humans extinct.

Burke came in to check on her progress.

"Ready to go…if we start now, we'll make it before nightfall."

She nodded and went to pick up her backpack. The trail would be much easier to follow back to their campsite. Burke had been on the radio and everything was in order there except that more gasoline storage tanks had been located a few miles away.

"You get enough to eat?"

"Yes…I had some powdered eggs and crackers," she said, "and I packed some energy bars with the water."

He nodded satisfied and she tried not to smile. Burke had his rough edges but he'd looked out after her whether she liked it or not. She didn't know why because she didn't know much about him, though she wondered if he had a family once. But then they all did. She had her parents, a sister and she had Will.

He had lost a brother and then his father, never really had mentioned his mother. Caroline figured she hadn't been around during most of his life. Maybe that's why he had related to Caesar who had lost his mother just after his own birth. If it hadn't been for Will, Caesar would have died along with his mother and the rest of the test apes.

Saving his father had driven the rest of his life and Caesar had been his outlet. She had arrived late in that dynamic but she'd had her role to play as well.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," Burke said, "about your past."

She sighed.

"I hate living a lie…and if it were just me I don't think I'd care," she said, "This is for my baby."

Even though that didn't make much sense because she didn't even know if her baby would survive being born in a world which had taken major steps backwards in medical care and with a virus that could attack it as soon as it drew breath.

No way of knowing whether her immunity would be passed along. She had no way of knowing whether Will would have survived the plague given that he died in its earliest days. When they'd been rushing around San Francisco pursuing the army of apes, the virus had began its deadly spread, one victim at a time.

"It's going to be a difficult life for a child," he said, "without reminding everyone of its father when they see him."

She shot a look at him but then realized that for most survivors, Will represented the end of their world.

"Isn't that what you are reminded of when you look at me?"

Burke looked at her and then shook his head.

"Come on, let's get going so we can get back."

She followed him out of the dwelling realizing he hadn't expounded on his answer.

They had walked through the forest, the one where they had let Caesar run off ahead to climb the trees. The sunlight had filtered through the canopy of trees enough to temper the morning chill.

By then, they had been going out a while and she had been helping him a lot with Caesar though he hadn't told her the truth about his origins yet. He didn't know how she'd react to his experimentation on Caesar's mother not to mention his own father. She hadn't known that until she found his journals after his death. He had injected his father with the original benign virus and it had reversed his Alzheimer's disease. But after a couple years, his body had apparently fought off the virus.

Not that the miraculous results he'd achieved had lasted long before his father slid back into dementia again.

The journals had noted his disappointments as clinical notations, when she realized that the toll had been more emotional. There were hints that he'd been working on a newer, more powerful virus but had concerns about it, after seeing how quickly it replicated in early tests. Yet he'd tested it on at least one chimpanzee, Chimp nine.

"Look at him. He looks like he's really free," Will had said, "and not as restless as he had been lately."

"He's not meant to live inside an attic," she said, "He's growing up and that'll mean bigger and stronger, probably more aggressive."

Will didn't seem like he'd believe that day would come when he'd be too much for him to handle.

But it'd come sooner than even both of them had realized.


	20. Chapter 20

Two months later…

Caesar sat in a tree overseeing the city of Seattle which looked much livelier than it had when they first arrived. More apes, all species represented had congregated there from the neighboring areas of Spokane and even from Portland.

That crew had informed them that restoring operations in that town had proven to be more difficult than anticipated. A large fire had been started on one section of the city to probably burn bodies and by then, the fire department had pretty much shut down forever. So a third of the city had burned down before a rain storm blew in to dampen the flames.

The apes had pretty much spent the rest of the time near the harbor trying to figure out how to work the boats. They had seen maps of the big neighboring ocean and of the islands off of the coast. Some very far away, but if they could find ways to reach them, their civilization could go global. So much remained unknown to them. Caesar had told them that there were many places on this planet where apes lived including the birthplaces of their species. Similar revolutions must have taken place on other continents and if they could create better channels of communication and travel, then they could better determine their numbers.

Humanity had once numbered itself in the billions. But they'd seen quickly enough what one virus could do and Caesar knew what had killed them off. After San Francisco had gone dark and quiet, he and a small cadre of gorillas had gone down to explore the ruins of what had been a vibrant city filled with thousands of people only weeks earlier. He'd stopped by Will's house but no one had been there. He walked through the familiar rooms which looked eerily undisturbed.

Will had died in front of him in the forest but he'd left the female vet behind. Did she return after she'd been freed by the armed men? If so, he saw no signs of her here though in the room that had been an office, he saw stacks of files on top of the desk, with a computer that no longer worked.

Then he saw another pile of journals, sprawled on the floor. They had belonged to Will and flipping through one of them, Caesar had known it had been the research he had done.

On both him and his own father, the man who had helped raise him. The woman had been kind to him but had come along later.

He had examined the journals a moment and then took leave of the house joining the other apes outside as they continued onto the company that had done the research. That facility had burned out and been destroyed, its insides trashed by them when he and others had gone to liberate the apes caged there.

That's where he found the last frantic notations about the virus, 113. It hadn't been the one his own mother had been given but had come later, not long before it had somehow been released.

It had made his job much easier but he'd seen the rotting bodies, littered everywhere including inside the homes where most had died.

Armando had looked at him as they stood inside the abandoned laboratory where a few men in white lab coats lay sprawled on the floor.

They had left not long after that, and the city would soon be a relic of their past.

Now in Seattle, he knew that it would be time soon for him to lead a scouting party out east. They were blocked by the vast ocean until they could master ways to cross what appeared to be endless. If it hadn't been for maps, they would have thought the ocean spanned the rest of the earth.

No doubt they would encounter wandering bands of humans picking their way through what had once been home. But they'd meet their own kind as well doing what they had done in Seattle, trying to build a new society. Alisa had insisted on going with him but he'd tried to sign to her that it was too dangerous.

She wouldn't be deterred, signing back that where Caesar go, she go.

Armando walked up to him signing that the gorillas felt they needed to find more weapons. They'd accumulated guns and explosives but they needed weapons more powerful.

Caesar signed why. Humans dead or dying…numbers small. But Ursa, one that had arrived not too long ago led the mantra that the only good human was a dead human. Caesar knew there was a story behind that but he also knew they needed them as a labor force, to do the work and fill the gaps in technology that they had mastered at one time.

Maurice and a couple of orangutans had been teaching themselves to read very quickly and were looking at books on government and law and politics, wanting to find a system of government that would fit their needs.

Caesar remained content to let them do that…if they came up with the perfect answer, it'd be one less thing for him to worry about. But keeping them all united would be challenge enough.

Caroline rubbed her abdomen just out of habit, as she looked over the research that Ruth and Glen had been engaged in recently. She had traveled over with Burke and a couple others to trade supplies and to hold more strategic sessions. Her pregnancy had just barely started to show and she had to upgrade her wardrobe to fit but otherwise the morning sickness and fatigue had passed and she started to feel pretty good.

Glen told her that the middle trimester would be the easiest so she intended to make the most of it not that she could afford to not pull her weight. Burke had meant it when he said he wouldn't tell her secret to the others but she just felt that she had to work even harder to prove herself anyway. Burke had to rein her in more than once and she hadn't minded it nearly as much as she acted. It made her feel a little less alone and overwhelmed. After all, the baby certainly hadn't been planned, it just happened not long before everything changed.

The last night of normality she would ever know and the last night of Will's life, she'd guessed. She'd been on the pill but there'd been a couple of days that last week when she'd forgotten. Just enough to cause it to fail but she hadn't known that when she'd said goodbye to him for what she thought would just be a while. But if she hadn't lost him to the army, she might have lost him to the plague anyway.

Glen looked up from his microscope.

"I don't know where you got those antibodies if that's what they even are."

He'd taken another blood sample from her during her prenatal exam. The baby of course seemed to be doing very well. She was due an ultrasound but they hadn't located much in the way of medical equipment.

"Maybe when I worked in Africa studying that chimp colony but what about Burke," she said, "He's immune and Ruth…"

Ruth nodded.

"It's all academic anyway at this point unless the virus mutates again."

"Maybe it'll be less virulent. Too little too late."

"Maybe," Ruth said, "but it could come back and hit everyone else."

"Maybe the apes," Burke said, from the doorway, "Even the playing field a little bit."

Caroline looked at him and smiled. She got up and walked over to him, folding her arms.

"So how did the repair go," she said, "Back online yet?"

"Yeah but the new frequency we picked up," he said, "It's sporadic, no way to tell where that broadcast came from."

The settlement had picked up a beacon signal from somewhere in the eastern seaboard of the United States. But then the radio had blown a transistor which needed to be repaired.

"They could be apes," she said, "Maybe they're using our technology."

He shrugged.

"Could be…but we should see if we can pick up that frequency again."

She nodded and she touched his arm.

"Hey I'm heading to get something to eat," she said, "Want to join me?"

He smiled and put his arm around her shoulder.

"Come on, let's go."

They headed to the mess where they found some apples that had been picked from a nearby orchard which had been overgrown by the time they found it. A rice dish with some legumes had also been prepared and smelled quite good. They had tried to focus on picking or growing their own food though they did use canned as well although in a year that wouldn't be an option anymore. At some point, they would have to find a way to feed themselves again. But people at the different settlements had started learning how to grow food all over again.

Caroline had tried to help others find ways to tend chickens to raise for eggs and meat. Some of them also went hunting. Since their numbers had dwindled so much, the best they could hope for was to find a place to hide and hole up from the apes until they could figure out what to do to do just more than survive.

She hadn't been the only pregnant woman as two others had gotten that way after the plague hit. They had the fathers there to more or less help them but Caroline hadn't had that.

And she missed it. She didn't know how Will would have handled an unexpected pregnancy; the entire time she knew him he'd been raising Caesar who he considered his son. She liked to think he might have been happy about it.

Thomas, a member of their own party walked over to them after she and Burke sat at a table.

"You going to that meeting tonight?"

Burke looked up.

"What meeting?"

Thomas sighed as he sat down across from Caroline.

"A scouting group found a small encampment of apes not far from here."

Burke frowned.

"I thought they weren't in this area."

"It's a very small group," Thomas said, "but not small enough. A few of the men are arming up and going to take them on."

Caroline frowned.

"But if they're not doing anything…"

Thomas's eyes looked at her in disdain.

"What are you some bleeding heart," he said, "These apes are wiping us all out."

She shook her head.

"No Thomas, we did that to ourselves."

Thomas looked over at Burke.

"Will you help us?"

Burke sipped his coffee.

"If there's more of them, you might get more than you bargained for," he said, "Maybe you should just watch them for a while longer to make sure you know what you're dealing with."

Thomas shook his head.

"Maybe we should just kill them and take our chances."

Caroline just sighed.

"No…you can't and I'm not a bleeding heart," she said, "I've seen what they can do and Burke's right."

"It's not because I don't want to do it myself," Burke said, "This is our planet but there's a time and a place."

Caroline watched him and knew what he was saying but she didn't want violence, after seeing what could happen.

"Don't do it Thomas."

But she knew she hadn't reached him and as soon as he finished eating, he and the other guys were going to go do some killing. She turned to Burke.

"They don't know what they're doing," she said, "This hatred. This whole idea of supremacy, that's what ended us."

Burke watched with her as Thomas left and moved on to talk to other young men, at another table. The animation of the discussion told them what they were planning.

Then Caroline decided to do something.


	21. Chapter 21

She left the table while Burke just watched and walked straight over to the table where Thomas had joined the other men.

They looked up at her.

"What are you doing," one of them asked.

Thomas just sneered.

"She was trying to talk me out of going after those damn monkeys."

The other men reacted by their bodies growing rigid and throwing her hostile stares. One of them, Denny stood up to face her.

"What are you going to do about it," he said, "as soon as we're done here, we're going over there and take care of it."

Thomas nodded.

"Yeah, kill them before they kill us," he said, "I'm not waiting for them to come over here and slaughter us in our sleep, to finish what that damn plague started."

"The others nodded. She knew that they had been in the population of those who had gotten sick but recovered. The course of the disease had been agonizing according to those who lived to talk about it and to those who had watched others die, gasping for breath while their organs imploded. Caroline had seen Ebola while in Zaire and remembered how it had taken lives. But this virus scarred its survivors in more ways than just residual damage.

"You don't know that's what will happen."

Denny gritted his teeth.

"That's exactly what did happen where I came from," he said, "An army of apes came one night, swooping right out of the damn trees and no one got away alive."

Caroline hadn't seen that during the standoff on the Golden Gate Bridge because the apes had been interested in escape not conquest then. But she had heard about the carnage in the Muir woods when they had attacked the apes after tailing Will. She had known that and had tried to warn him.

But it had been too late.

"You don't know shit lady," Denny said, "Some said they ate the babies."

Caroline knew that didn't happen, but as the apes spread their reach, stories like that sprung out of the violence. And as it spread, the stories took on a life of their own.

"They aren't carnivores," she said, "They don't eat people."

Thomas glared at her.

"You are calling Denny a liar?"

She sighed, knowing she was outnumbered here.

"No…I'm just saying what I know," she said, "I'm sorry that you saw such violence, that you lost the people you knew and loved but that plague took out way more people than these apes did."

"They didn't need to kill everyone because of the plague," Thomas said, "Doesn't mean they didn't want to or that they won't kill the rest of us."

These men had gotten themselves all worked up and Caroline knew they wouldn't stop to listen to reason. But if she didn't dissuade them, they could spark a battle that would kill many here.

"Think about it," she said, "If those apes aren't alone, many more could come and you can't fight them. There's too few people and too weak. You don't even have an infrastructure yet."

Hopefully that side of the argument would get through to them, through the anger, the hatred and the fear but the men just looked at each other and started to get up. She stood in their path.

"Don't do it," she said, "You've got people here who can't defend themselves, do you want to sacrifice them?"

Denny spit on the ground.

"Fuck, what are you some kind of ape lover?"

She just stared at him not knowing how to answer that without giving it all away. There was so much she wanted to tell people but she couldn't, not without endangering herself and her child. She had a feeling that Will had earned a place on the list right beneath the apes as someone to hate enough to kill.

But she couldn't let them go after those apes.

"Sit down and calm down before you do something you can't take back."

Denny snarled at her.

"Get out of my way bitch."

Caroline sighed, not everything in the old world had died with it. But she kept her focus on doing what she needed to do to stop them.

"No."

He didn't like that much and before she knew it, he had taken a fist and punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. She saw stars and felt the jolt of pain rush through her but she knew to get back on her feet before he could move past her. She sprung up to put herself in front of him when suddenly; a man grabbed Denny and threw him against the table.

She didn't need to look closely through her blurred vision to know it was Burke. Denny recovered enough to leap at him and a couple of the other men tried to strike at Burke. But he'd been trained to fight hard enough not just to get away but to kill. Caroline knew that from looking at him.

Will had been shorter and wiry than Burke but once he had punched out Dodge one of the cruel handlers assigned to care for Caesar at the so-called sanctuary he had been taken to after the incident with the neighbor. She knew he had done it for Caesar and hadn't cared if Dodge had beat the crap out of him, he had been so angry. Afterward, a doctor bandaged his hand and she'd taken home to her house.

She knew how he had felt taking on larger adversaries because all she could think about was stopping the men from killing the apes for different reasons, some of which had to do with their own survival. But also because those apes hadn't harmed anyone and perhaps had been struggling for their own survival in a changing world.

She knew that most survivors wouldn't see her point of view. Burke in the meantime had quickly dispatched two of the men but Denny wouldn't give up. She got up and stood behind him as he finally slammed the guy on the table face down and then put pressure on his back until Denny stopped wiggling.

He twisted his arm tighter behind his back to get him to keep still.

"Okay, this is how it's going to go," he said, "I know you want to kill those apes, but if you do that, they'll be more of them showing up here to fight than we can handle and innocent people will die."

"They need to die…they're like lice.

Burke leaned over closer to his ear.

"Our day's going to come when we'll fight back," he said, "but it's a numbers game and right now they have the numbers since they're immune to the plague and we're not so we got to be smarter instead."

Denny's next words were unintelligible.

"Did you hear me," Burke, "You going to stay away from them?"

A nod from the table and Burke loosened his grip.

"Okay then I guess we understand each other," he said, "Now there's a generator pump that needs fixing so get moving."

Denny got up and started brushing off his clothes, not looking at Burke. As he started to go, Burke grabbed his arm again.

"And if you ever hit a woman again," he said, "You won't be getting up next time for a while."

Denny nodded and then shot a resentful look at Caroline. Burke turned to look at her, concern etched on his face.

"You okay…hurt?"

She reached to touch her face where a bruise was forming.

"Yeah he packs less of a wallop than an ape," she said, wincing.

"We'll go get you looked at to make sure the baby's fine…"

She touched his arm.

'It's fine, I'm fine. Maybe one of those cold packs."

He nodded and they left the building.

Caesar looked over at Alisa who had walked off to get some water. They had eaten a meal of cereal with some dried fruit. Not really his favorite foods but they still had to gather up whatever looked edible until they learned how to produce food on their own. Maurice and the other orangutans had debated with Alpha and other chimpanzees on creating a research committee to start collecting information on the humans and their technology that they could use. Caesar had been reluctant to do anything related to science given how a group of them had managed to wipe their own people off the planet. Kobas when he got wind of it signed "kill scientists". Some other apes had waved their arms and hooted in approval.

He had seen enough records that were kept on virus 113 as it had been called to know that it had been created in the same laboratory that essentially created him. But Maurice signed that the research would be very limited, information gathering through observation only, no experimentation of any kind. That made him feel a little better but he knew that the humans hadn't zoomed down the path to their own destruction overnight but had gotten there one step at a time.

Not what he wanted his own kind to repeat.

He glanced over at Alisa who had never seen the inside of a laboratory. He hadn't either until the night he broke the apes out. Only the outer walls of the building when he had been taken there by Will to explain his origins…after he realized the man who raised him wasn't really his father.

And he wasn't human or really ape either. He had seen pictures of apes that looked like him in books given to him by Will but he hadn't felt a part of them either. Not until he'd been dumped in that jail. Then he saw others like him, only they weren't only in appearance until he found the serum in Will's house.

Alisa brought the water to him and he sipped it, as she watched him. She'd been wanting to have young but while Caesar enjoyed her company he didn't know what his offspring would be like. Would it be like him and the other apes, or would it be like they had been before they'd been changed by the serum? He had some understanding of genetics from reading but he had grown up to be even smarter than his mother.

Was what had changed them permanent or would it die with them?

"Want baby Caesar"

Alisa had signed that a lot lately and he answered with "later" and he'd thought about it since. But the questions that arose about its future and that of his kind never left him. Maybe he should allow for the creation of Maurice's research committee to get some answers.

One step at a time.

Caroline put the pack over her face that Burke had given her.

"What were you doing getting into it with those men?"

She sighed, having waited for him to confront her about it.

"I couldn't let them do it Burke."

"You're pregnant," he said, "You have to think about that."

Anger filled her then and her eyes flashed as she slammed the pack down.

"And you think I don't," she said, "I think about it all the time…what's going to happen to it…what it's going to be like giving birth in a world that's changed without him…and whether it's going to live or die."

"I know it's not easy."

She sighed.

"You're right about that. Sometimes I don't think I'm going to make it and I don't want to," she said, "I miss everything that used to be…that's gone because of what a group of scientists did including the father."

He picked up her pack and placed it in her hand again. Her fingers wrapped around it as she looked at him.

"A few more minutes…and that will eliminate most of the swelling."

She nodded.

"Thanks…"

He paused and then he brushed a strand of hair away from the ice pack.

"And you're not alone," he said, "We're all just trying to figure out what the new rules are and we need each other."

She nodded.

"And if you knew me, you'd know I was the last person who would ever be saying that."

With that, he walked away but she knew in time he'd be back.


	22. Chapter 22

Caesar sat and watched the bonobos make a presentation to him, Maurice, Armando and several of the newly arrived chimpanzees. He knew he had to watch them including their leader, a female named Kara. Unlike the other apes, males didn't lead the colonies as they were called.

For the bonobos, their leaders were their females. Kara stood small in stature next to the other apes. After all, Caesar remembered that the bonobos were once referred to as pygmy chimpanzees.

But he knew they were smarter. One major step on the evolutionary ladder ahead of even the chimpanzees. It still wasn't known if the serum that made them all smart had been some form of equalizer meaning that it put all apes on an even playing field, cognitively.

In reality in the old world, they hadn't been all the same with each primate species occupying its own strata on the intelligence scale with chimpanzees and gorillas being near the top, below the bonobos. But Caesar had noticed that the orangutans like Maurice had appeared just as intelligent. Caesar had to correct the older orangutan when he had signed that apes were dump. Hardly, Caesar signed back and then he showed him why.

He had enjoyed a special camaraderie with Maurice because originally in the so-called sanctuary they had been the only two who knew sign language. That led to some interesting conversations and the first time that Caesar had been able to communicate through language with another apes. Will had taught him signing but besides him he hadn't much opportunity to use it.

The bonobos had picked it up rapidly including Kara but they had their own ways of communicating and some of them made the chimpanzees look tame. Whereas Caesar had been able to focus his amorous attentions on Alisa for the most part, Kara had numerous males hanging around her and the way they interacted each other could make a chimp feel inadequate. Alisa had shaken her head in disapproval as Kara moved from one male to the next exchanging more than just affection.

Caesar found that many questions about what humans called sex had been answered through books until he met up with his own kind. Watching humans engage in that behavior didn't serve as useful models. Will only had one girlfriend the entire time that Caesar grew up with him and she had moved in with him.

Modeling his own behavior after Will's wouldn't work even though he felt great affection for Alisa who shared his home with him. Still, when he'd seen Lucia and the newly arrived Moira who had once been in a circus, he had felt stirrings towards them as well.

Kara captured his attention with a squeal when one of the male bonobos embraced her. He still didn't understand neither it nor their philosophy of live and let live. They hadn't been involved in any of the fighting while watching on the sidelines but now they came out urging negotiations with the dwindling groups of humans.

Nicodemus another orangutan urged that the humans needed to be studied to find out why their brains differed from apes, what made them so violent towards each other.

"Need live brain."

Caesar saw his sign and shook his head vigorously. There would be no experimentation unless it was on the dead corpses. He despised what had been done to the apes by humans but there was no need to repeat that odious behavior. Kara swung over to Nicodemus and studied him carefully, touching him which made him shrink back. Caesar couldn't blame him, he found Kara and her band very strange but he found himself liking her.

Occasionally they'd swing up the trees outside Seattle together and sit on branches signing to each other. Caesar was practicing his speech but kept it mostly to himself though Alisa heard him talk.

"You not kill?"

She had signed that to him when they were 20 feet above the ground and he shook his head.

"Why?"

"Human kind baby"

She scratched her head at that.

"When?"

"I baby grow I leave. Go cage."

She nodded clearly understanding what a cage was but she'd never had been raised in a home with humans but a colony of bonobos living in a huge enclosure being studied by human scientists who had banded them and routinely evaluated them. No invasive surgery or other treatment, for the most part they were left to their own devices to educate and on occasion impress their human watchers.

No need to leave because food, water and shelter were there and each other but Kara grew bored so she figured a way to escape and then later return without the humans being none the wiser. Caesar could relate to that having done the same.

When the humans died off or left, Kara had already known the way out so she led the others after they woke up one day, with a clarity they had lacked the previous days. Even though most of the chimpanzees wished they could kick the bonobos to the curb, Caesar knew he had to build an alliance with them.

He thought about selecting Kara to join his exploratory party but didn't know how that would go over with the others. But of all of them maybe she would understand why he needed to go on that journey.

"Go find human."

Kara's question made him fall silent. He had made his peace with Will before he had died. That chapter of his old life had closed and he had a new family. He and Alisa would have babies soon enough starting their own family line in the new world.

But then he remembered the promise.

Caroline had woken up the next morning and felt better. She had held the cold pack on her face until she could no longer stand it. Thomas and Denny had shrunk back in the background of work detail on some generators and she knew that Burke's warning had sunk in at least for now.

But she had gone out early in the morning moving deftly through the forest to find the encampment. She recognized it immediately as nests in low branches near the ground, much lower than you'd expect to find with chimpanzees. There were four of them, three adults and a child. Two females and one male. She remained hidden watching them stir, as the sunlight broke through the trees and the air grew warmer. Her years in the field in Africa had taught her how to blend in with the background and observe.

The smaller ape, like a human toddler stayed close to the females while the male kept close watch over them, sniffing the air. Caroline wondered if he detected her and then he signaled to one of the females who signed to the others. Caroline picked up that it had been about finding food. But she knew if they were signing apes, they must have come from a laboratory setting or they were taught to sign by other apes who might be nearby in similar camps.

She watched them fascinated despite herself. Apes had been able to learn rudimentary sign language skills even before the serum. Chimpanzees and gorillas in particular associated with different research institutions.

When she met Will while treating Caesar, he'd signed to the young ape and she'd been impressed with his vocabulary. She'd liked the scientist on sight, moved by his devoted care to Caesar but sensing a deeply complicated man beneath his affectionate surface.

She'd had no idea at first how right she'd been about him.

And she hadn't known how intellectually advanced Caesar had been until several years later though looking back she should have known, even if she hadn't guessed the reasons.

Watching the chimpanzees interact reminded her of that time that she'd tried to forge relationships with Will and Caesar, the latter feeling the role shift more keenly than his human father. But she'd fallen in love with the scientist and he with her and that part of it had come naturally enough.

Signing, she left the apes and headed back to the encampment to pack up for the trip back with Burke. He waited for her in the dwelling where they'd staked out some space on the floor to sleep. He making sure she was comfortable before they fell asleep, retreating to their own memories.

"We'll take back some more of the penicillin," he said, "That stuff's going to be getting even scarcer."

She nodded.

"Yeah but it's the other antibiotics that worry me more," she said, "The ones needed for germs resistant to other types."

He packed them in his bag.

"At some point we're going to have to go to the labs and see if we can get the recipes," he said, "Maybe someone among us can produce something close to them."

Caroline knew that'd be difficult. It'd be much similar to research the origins of most of these medications back to the plant or fungi that had produced their basic elements.

"When winter comes and there are more things like pneumonia and bronchitis, we'll need them."

"We'll have to take each day at a time, that's all we can do while planning for the future."

Summer would be ending soon and where they were; autumn could cool down quite a bit and in the summer, snow. They' have to really start preparing to do what was necessary to live. But the defeatism which had plagued their groups in the earliest days and weeks had shifted gradually to if not hope about the future, at least resolve to keep the species from dying out completely. At some point that would mean having babies, to begin creating the next generation out of the ashes of the old one.

She had already gotten started and she knew when she felt the baby kick not long from now it'd feel more real to her. Maybe that's where she'd find her hope.

"At least more of us are starting to believe it might not be the end of us."

He looked over at her and she had zipped up her bag to prepare to slip over her shoulders as they readied to head on back. She realized that months ago, she had planned to fly back to her home country and visit family. Relatives she hadn't seen in years had planned to host a family reunion including a large party and Will had planned to go there to meet her family.

They'd been talking about cementing their relationship.

But all that had ended the day the virus had escaped from its confines in the lab where

Will had worked.

Time had changed their lives so quickly in ways no one could anticipate. Would it reward them with more of the same?

Ruth met them at the pathway leading away from the encampment and embraced Caroline goodbye. As she and Burke walked away, she noticed Denny watching them leave too, which made her wonder if the chimpanzees would be safe.

"I don't trust him."

Burke didn't argue with that as they started walking.

"There's nothing we can do about it," he said, "It's their affair."

"I understand that but if Denny's not careful he would restart the war."

Burke and she walked side by side when the path widened.

"They'd wipe us out right now," he said, "Six months, a year might be a different story but now we're too damn vulnerable."

She shook her head.

"I don't want a war Burke," she said, "I just want a place to live and remember what it's like to be human again."

"We've got to find a safe place and they're might not be any corner left that we won't have to fight to keep."

Caroline couldn't answer that because she knew it to be true unless the apes left sections of the world unconquered. But surviving took a lot of the fight out of her, that and being stripped of everyone she'd known.

But that only turned out to be partly true.

The weathered man climbed out of the chamber where he and others had been holed up after the viral outbreak went global. He had started it, he knew it along with the scientists who'd created it but mercifully after a month, there hadn't been anyone alive to spread that news.

Yes, there'd been new blurbs about suspicions raised about the origins of the lethal virus. Scientists sitting on panels in front of cameras saying that something so virulent, so merciless in its onslaught had to be an entirely new virus or an older one that had undergone a major mutation inside a patient zero or even its host.

But in the background speculation grew that the virus had actually been manmade. Will and Franklin had ran tests on Virus 113 to push the cure into a more progressive direction, not long after Will's father had died in his sleep after most of his mind had been eroded by Alzheimer's. But 113 while promising in early trials had a few surprises waiting for them.

Its increased rate of mutability concerned Will and the other scientists but they had still moved forward with it. He had been pressured by his bosses to increase funding support of 113.

When they discovered Franklin had died, it had clearly been the virus but everyone had been running around chasing after the super amped apes that had broken out of labs and zoos in the city. He'd started spreading the virus around quickly and then naturally it hadn't remained confined to the city.

But he and the others in the corporation had remained mum the entire time even though they knew they had created the deadly cure that had no cure. One of the younger scientists, a colleague of Will's had threatened to go public and one of the guards that patrolled their facility, had shot him in the head, from behind before he could leave the room.

No, there was no way that they would let the rest of the world know their secret even when it became clear the remaining population had more pressing concerns. Still, in one broadcast, their lab had been named as the source of the virus and a small band of vigilantes, several with blood drying on their clothes showed up to take shots at the facility which looked deserted.

Most of the scientists had started dying too and wanted to go home to their families but weren't allowed to leave. He had gotten very ill himself, feeling the malaise, the symptoms of a severe cold or flu. His head ached like it'd split open like a melon and he felt as if he were on fire.

Then the bleeding began but in his case, he never got that far. His fever broke but he didn't fully recover his sharpness. He felt as if his cognitive skills, his intellect had dulled, and his energy levels flagged. He felt less human and what had been easy before became more of a struggle.

Now he spent his days watching a deserted San Francisco as the population died off, except for when some apes had broken into the lab and rustled around while he and the others had hid underground not knowing how many they'd have to fight.

After that it had fallen quiet as he and the few that remained struggled through a mind fog to get through each day.

Jacobs sat waiting for nightfall thinking how quickly it had all gone to hell. But a couple scientists worked with 113 using rudimentary equipment, in hopes that if it mutated again, it'd wipe out the apes as well before they relegated mankind to the extinction list.

It'd take serious odds to do that but one could only try and hope. As a member of a dying species, it was better to like a poem he learned in college, rage, rage against the dying of the light.


	23. Chapter 23

Kara looked over at Caesar as he showed her the progress they had made with redeveloping Seattle into their own city. She kept signing questions which he answered deftly before they moved forward.

"More apes come?"

He nodded, sighing that Maurice had greeted a new band of gibbons from a research colony north of Sacramento, which had made great time but then when it came to speed of travel no one could beat the smaller apes. But they didn't get much respect from the more advanced species being deemed inferior in intelligence. Caesar didn't explain that though that might have been the case in the past, the smart serum had more than made up for any lag. Sparky, the lead gibbon had picked up signing rapidly though his hands flew so quickly even Caesar had trouble keeping up with his expression. They'd be recruited to work as messengers because Caesar had his eye on taking his scouting group to what had once been called Chicago or Minneapolis even.

Kara definitely wanted to go with him. She had conferred with her group and said the bonobos were definitely in on any exploratory travels. The other chimpanzees wanted to give them a smack down for even suggesting their inclusion but Caesar had signed, enough no fight.

He didn't know what to do with the fact that his own kind, the chimpanzees resented their closest cousins. They were stronger, more aggressive and he knew that they could make short work of the bonobos if they fought them.

At least on a playing field that favored physical prowess but bring more cognitive abilities into the fray and the bonobos would swing circles around them. But Caesar didn't want that battle to ever take place, he needed them both to work together. Their natural feeling of superiority aside, the bonobos were willing to work with anyone as long as negotiation including the more…sexual sides of it were woven into the process.

The gorillas had been doing searches for weapon stockpiles and soon found another trove of assault rifles. Humans had been very much enamored of their firepower Caesar had discovered. The gorillas had taken the guns out into an alley behind some stores and practiced on human corpses sprawled there, pretty much decomposed. Caesar knew that Ursa had been very interested in using live humans as targets for practice but he put a quick stop to that kind of thinking.

"Why violence" had been a question that Kara had asked him often and he had no answer. He didn't feel the same level of rage that many of the other apes felt towards their former masters. If he hadn't grown up with people who cared for him and loved him like Will, it might have been very different.

He'd been very resentful of Will for putting him in the sanctuary but when the scientist had told him it was his fault for everything that happened, Caesar had realized that Will had done what he had to do.

And when Will had stepped in front of him to take the bullets meant to rid the revolution of its leader, he realized the depth of love his human father had towards him. He'd sacrificed his own life, his own happiness and had made the most difficult of choices to pick Caesar over his own kind.

No doubt the humans had their own feelings about what one of them had done, but it left Caesar with some hope that compassion still existed in a few of them. Will had been naïve though in his belief that he could bring safety to the apes when the military had been on his tail and he hadn't even known it.

But the apes did

He couldn't explain all this to Kara anymore than the rest.

"Violence work no"

Kara's signing wasn't lost on him and he didn't know how to respond. Sometimes violence was necessary for self defense as it would be to conquer. The apes had inherited the land because of mankind's arrogance and foolishness, and it would be theirs.

But so far enslaving the humans had been enough because the plague had taken any feelings of resistance out of its survivors. It did something to those it didn't kill.

Armando came up to him and told him that the gorillas had reported finding more weapons in an abandoned police station. You could never have enough guns, were their motto.

Caesar had yet to find his own.

He had led a revolution that had sped along faster on its own weight than he had believed but now what? He had been behind the curve when it came to recreating societies. How hard could it be, when mankind left its technology behind? All they had to do was learn how to use it.

Seattle would soon see light again, because the humans fix the power grid, that would be all the inspiration the growing masses would need to know they were well on their way.

Jacobs conferred with the other men in the chamber. Yes, it was possible that 113 could mutate and turn back to kill simian species but they could wait a milieu or longer for that to happen. It could combine and swap DNA with a more benign simian virus if it were like the flu. But what it was, was only the second hemorrhagic fever virus to become airborne after the virulent strain of Ebola that breached its containment in a research laboratory in Reston. Primates had been infected but the few humans who had contracted it didn't get sick they merely showed antibodies evidencing exposure. Most Americans, hell most of the world didn't know that they'd been given a reprieve from exposure to an airborne virus with traits similar to Ebola Zaire which had a 90% fatality rate.

He'd read the book, Red Zone that detailed the little known near brush with disaster that mankind had involving a virus that had arrived with some monkeys rather than been designed by scientists.

This time, there hadn't been a reprieve, a moment where after the icy cold terror rushed through them at what they nearly faced, followed by a sigh of relief. The virus had been airborne, it had escaped and it had been fatal to humans.

Since the outbreak, Jacobs had spent all his time confined to the laboratory, watching his colleagues die and realizing that the ones who'd gone home before the deaths started piling up would never return to their work stations. The place had been burned out and trashed inside when some of Caesar's army had come to break out the apes that lived in the facility.

But a core section of it had remained intact and there Jacobs and his surviving colleagues had lived, breathing the stench of dead and dying as it settled over the quiet city. He'd read old journals, old newspapers, about the break in peace talks in Ireland, the discovery of prehistoric remains of an earlier species of hominid in central Africa and the speculation about why a space craft and its crew of four had disappeared while orbiting Mars.

Taylor, the name of the commander had been and Jacobs remembered seeing him on television being interviewed on the Today show before the ill-fated flight. But then just as well, they all likely were killed in some undiscovered accident because there remained no earth left to welcome them home.

Jacobs also kept a secret stash of scotch to drink at night so he could sleep, but he dreamt of the apes that had been lined up around the levels above him as he'd walked into the cafeteria. They'd looked large and menacing before they swooped down to the ground level in one wave of movement.

Will and him fighting over the testing of the latest serum, the lethal virus that now likely circled the earth on the trade winds seeking out every human in every hidden corner to kill off. At least there was no one left alive who know for sure where it had been born, any history that remained to be told wouldn't finger his company and himself as the catalysts of mankind's extinction.

Another scientist, his face lined with exhaustion walked up to him.

"We found some more canisters of 113," he said, "but we don't have any equipment to engineer any mutations."

Jacobs folded his arms.

"We need to find some way to turn it against simians before they completely take over."

The scientist, a guy named Webb sighed.

"Not going to be easy or even possible," he said, "We had to send a crew out to get some gasoline for the generators. We don't know how long we can even stay in San Francisco."

Jacobs felt the urgency rise within him.

"Then we must hurry and get to work then."

Webb just looked at his former boss like he'd lost his mind.

"Look I think we need to pack up some things and head to the mountains," he said, "I heard on the shortwave that there's a group up there holed up."

Jacobs shook his head.

"The apes will find them soon enough and slaughter them. We need to stay here."

Webb threw up his hands.

"You can stay here in this rotting city," he said, "We're leaving. We took a vote."

Jacobs considered letting them all bail out of their responsibilities but then he thought otherwise and reached behind him beneath his desk.

He pulled out a gun and pointed it at Webb.

"I say that we're all staying here," he said, "We've got too much work to do yet."

The firepower in his hand didn't leave much room for argument.

They walked in the park not long after Caesar had been sent away, and it hadn't been the same as when they'd all been together. Will had felt a piece of himself had been ripped away even as he told himself that they'd done what was best for him. Caesar had grown larger and stronger and had the aggressive and volatile behavioral patterns of an adult chimpanzee.

Caroline had warned him that this would happen when he grew up. The first day that she had met Will and Caesar. But he hadn't really listened because in his mind, he still saw the chimpanzee as young and affectionate towards him and his father. But as Caesar grew up physically, emotionally he became more confused and estranged. Will had asked Caroline if he'd done the right thing when he had told Caesar he was his father.

"You were his father," she had answered, "You raised him from the time he was a baby. He'd be dead if it weren't for you."

Will had squeezed his arm tighter around her waist but had sighed as well.

"But he asks so many questions now," he said, "I tried to answer them by taking him to where he was born and tell him about his mother."

Bright Eyes, the female chimpanzee who had been executed as a failed experiment when all she wanted to do was protect her baby. She had grown smart enough from the serum to understand the need to keep him hidden from the humans.

"You'll be a good father someday Will."

He looked at her then because they had idly discussed having children, even getting married but they'd both been so busy with their careers and the drama surrounding them. Will had been too focused on Caesar's welfare to think about his own future but they did love each other.

"I hope so."

She stopped and looked at him.

"I know it's hard but you really did the best you could do for him."

He nodded but hadn't seemed so sure.

"I'm not sure I was even a good son."

She heard the wistfulness in his voice knowing that he'd felt that most of his life he'd been overlooked by his own father who spent more time with his older brother. The one who had been a music prodigy like his father and not more scientifically bent like Will.

But his brother, John had died and he'd survived and maybe there was a certain unfairness to that. He'd spent most of the rest of his life making up for that. Including through his research on the disease that ultimately took his father away emotionally and then through death as well.

She'd wrapped her arms around his waist and looked at him.

"He loved you…even when he no longer knew you."

"If only the drug had worked…well it did but his own body built up resistance," he said, "Maybe it just needs to be amped up."

She had felt uneasiness fill her, not knowing what he had said. He glanced at her then and then he smiled.

"You're right," he said, "I knew he loved me and he loved Caesar. I just wish we could have had more time…"

She woke up then in the bed she'd been sleeping in at the cabin. Darkness met her, the only sound a branch tapping a window from a wind that had kicked up after they'd returned from the other encampment.

God, she must have been dreaming again because just a moment ago, she'd seen Will and he's looked so real walking with her in the park. They'd been trying to move on with their lives after taking Caesar to the sanctuary and filling the empty hole left in their lives by his departure.

She sighed, getting up to get some water from the kitchen. The pump to the well had been fixed so the water ran again, and after draining the copper and rust sediments out of the piping, it ran clear again.

Burke sat up, reading some papers, a lantern next to him. He looked up at her as she entered the living room with her glass of water.

"You're supposed to be sleeping."

She narrowed her eyes.

"So are you…do you even sleep?"

He smiled at her.

"Occasionally, but I've been spending time going over some maps."

She sat down beside him on the couch, putting her glass down on the table in front of them.

"What are they?"

"Tunnels underneath the ground," he said, "Quite a network of them actually…not sure what they were used for after they were built."

She had no idea either but if they were useful now, that's what mattered.

"They safe you think?"

"I don't know," he said, "I'd like to explore them and see. They'd be awfully useful if we ever did have any run ins with the apes."

She nodded.

"Yeah and we could store supplies in them as well."

He sighed.

"With that group of apes living near Ruth's group, definitely something we have to think about and plan for, the day more of them arrive."

Yeah, there was no getting around that issue and they were woefully unprepared to face them. Their numbers too few, and too many of the people had been weakened by the virus.

"Okay then we start exploring them tomorrow."

His brows arched.

"We…I thought I'd get a group of men."

She folded her arms.

"You have anything against women going with you?"

He looked her over.

"Pregnant women…it's too risky."

She shook her head.

"Life's too damn risky for a pregnant woman in case you haven't noticed."

He couldn't argue with that because for her and her baby, so much about their futures remained uncertain. But he remained resolute.

"No need to make it more dangerous."

She sighed in exasperation.

"What is it with you men," she said, "Will tried to keep me from going with him to the damn Golden Gate Bridge and he was the one running around like crazy dodging bullets."

He shook his head.

"Must have been something," he said, "That's where it began. They should have just blown up the damn bridge to stop them."

She heard the anger in his voice but if it hadn't been for the deadly virus, the apes' revolution probably wouldn't have succeeded.

"Then I and my baby would be dead," she said, "because we were there. Even if I didn't know I was pregnant."

That gave him pause and his face softened.

"Burke…we can't blame the apes for taking advantage of what we did to ourselves," she said, "What Will and those other scientists created and how their success became more important than the rest of us. All we can do is survive it."

She watched him react to her words, and at first he did so by touch. He brushed his fingers against her neck, his face becoming pensive.

"We will do just that."

She nodded.

"Okay so let's take a look at those maps."

He closed the documents back up on the table and looked back at her.

"No, now it's time to sleep," he said, "So we have the energy we need to face this all over again in the morning."

She nodded and then she did something she didn't expect. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek before heading back to her own bedroom.

"See you in the morning then."

As she headed back to bed, she didn't fear the return of her dreams.


	24. Chapter 24

Caroline looked at the group of people from their encampment as they sat around a table inside one of what had once been a recreational room.

"You can't be serious," she said, "We don't know if they're a threat to us."

An older man, Carlton looked at her in a way she read as patronizing at best, contemptuous at worst. He'd never liked her even when she first joined up with them and when she'd fallen ill, he'd been the first one to propose that she be left alone to die.

Right now, he sat at the head of the table even though no one was leading the meeting and just shook his head at her. She believed he was probably of the generation of men that believed that women were best seen preferably in skimpy clothing in private or an apron in public.

"We need to stop them before their numbers grow," he said, "And I propose we gather up some firepower and hike to their location and ambush them while they sleep."

She flashed back to an earlier time when she and Will had deduced that Caesar had led his army to the Muir Woods where he had found freedom from his childhood of confinement so they could fade into the sheer size of the protected area. Will had told her that he had to go talk to Caesar, to persuade him to turn himself in and he would be protected. She didn't think Caesar would agree that he needed protection from humans by others including Will. After all, the two of them had been estranged since Will had taken him to the so-called sanctuary.

But Will had wanted to go talk to him, to try at least figuring he owed him that much after everything that had happened. She knew the risks, not just to the apes but to Will as well. But what could she do but kiss him and wish him luck before watching him disappear into the forest.

Only he hadn't been walking in there alone, because as soon as he left, a group of armed men had gathered weapons to follow him to the apes. She'd tried to run and warn him but they'd grabbed her quick, restraining her so all she could do was pray that nothing bad would happen.

Knowing very well that it would but that the forest would hold on tightly to its secrets.

She closed her eyes to that memory now trying to find an argument to launch against a man who wanted to restart a war when most of them had retreated from the battle to find if not peace, a chance for survival.

"No…you're putting everyone here including those who can't fight at grave risk," she said, "haven't we learned anything from what's happened?"

Apparently not because Carlton appeared totally unmoved by what she'd said. She knew she couldn't blame him, based on the little she'd learned about him, he'd lost two younger generations of his family to first the plague and then the survivors had been killed when apes swept out of the trees onto his neighborhood, and into his house killing those who moved.

The violence in some of the attacks mystified her only in that there hadn't been that back in the beginning except in Muir Woods, though that account had been told entirely through the pieces of what had once been a cadre of humans that had to be reconstructed just to remember they were human.

Maybe the apes had become more emboldened by the reduced numbers of humans. A shifting of the paradigm in terms of dominance and rule.

"We might be facing a tough fight anyway," Carlton said, "and by a larger army if we don't strike now."

"They'll send more apes," she countered, "They'll have to because we acted aggressively against them."

Carlton paused and looked at the room of men around him, besides the one woman who had been a constant source of irritation.

"How do you know anything," he said, "Why don't you go back and help the other women fix up the mess?"

She gritted her teeth but she knew she couldn't react the way he'd expected.

"I think they've got the mess well in hand," she said, "and I understand this situation more than you do and that's what matters, not my gender."

The other men looked over at Carlton and she didn't want this to turn into a battle of the sexes. She'd hoped that prejudices that dominated the old society had died with it but as long as individuals like Carlton made the decisions, they'd outlive most of humanity. She hadn't even considered telling them that she was pregnant yet.

"Look we keep an eye on them and see what happens," she suggested, "We don't start a war we can't win."

Carlton's face twisted.

"I knew you were one of those damned bleeding heart ape lovers but we're supposed to wait her quietly until they show up and enslave us if they don't slaughter us first?"

She folded her arms and looked straight at them.

"I'm not an ape hater," she said, "I'm someone who wants to survive just like everyone here only I'm not sure fighting a larger adversary is going to promote that."

He shook his head, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.

"We can't listen to this crap," he said, "We've got weapons, enough men here who are willing to take them out before they even have a chance to do that to us."

She sighed, trying to find some more words to work on swaying many of those who were still undecided on the impromptu council. Burke who sat beside her finally spoke up.

"She's right and she does know better than most of us," he said, "Listen, personally I'd love to go out and give them what they gave us but militarily, it doesn't make any sense unless you want to commit suicide."

Carlton glowered.

"They wouldn't show us mercy."

Burke looked at him.

"Perhaps," he said, "but this isn't about mercy, this is about working on our own survival here. We're going to fight them and we're going to take back what we lost but right now, we need to push the date of that battle as far ahead as possible."

Carlton didn't look happy about that and Caroline knew he wanted to gather up as many men, as many guns as they could carry to go kill the group of apes. But that would bring the battle to them and they couldn't survive that not while they were still so vulnerable.

"I'll go watch them."

The other men turned and looked at her.

"They're chimpanzees; I'm very familiar with that species."

Carlton scowled.

"Figures, did you have one as a pet?"

She didn't know how to answer that which didn't matter because she couldn't share that part of her past with them. She felt Burke's hand lightly on her upper back and she looked at him.

"I'll go with her."

She looked at him, her brows raised.

"It has to be a small group," she said, "Chimpanzees have stronger senses than we do and they'll pick us out if there's more than two."

Carlton didn't like that at all.

"They'll still outnumber you."

"Barely," Burke said, "and we'll be armed but she's right, if we're going to learn anything about them, we'll have to keep it small."

She nodded, already making plans inside her head as to how to do the surveillance like she did back in the rain forests of Africa. The others at the table just looked at them and then one by one, slowly nodded agreeing to the plan.

Carlton sat there tapping the fingers of one hand on the table and fuming while formulating his own plan.

Jacobs sat at his own table buried deeply beneath the laboratories of the corporation he'd managed during better times.

And now during the worst of days as well.

They had retreated because another group of apes, orangutans and a couple of chimpanzees had wandered in the damaged section of the laboratory rummaging through the broken filing cabinets. He had no idea what they were looking for but perhaps they did.

"I wish we could change that virus," Walter a biomedical scientist said, "Take them all out."

Jacobs sighed having finally tracked down the remainder of Will's notes on his work on 113 and what he read didn't leave him feeling much hope.

"He deliberately made that virus nearly untouchable by the immune system," he said, "He'd been so determined to do that ever since his father's immune system destroyed 112 and the cure was undone."

"So that's why the infectious rate was so high, not to mention the fatality?"

Jacobs nodded.

"We can preserve that lethality and just made it target simians."

Walter sighed.

"How do we do that," he said, "I'm surprised Will had no idea that the virus he was working on was fatal to humans."

Jacobs didn't respond to that because Will had warned him about possible complications of genetically engineering the newer viral agent. But Jacobs had wanted to continue testing with increased measures to reduce the risk of exposure to it. It was hardly his fault if one of the technicians had accidently breached that protocol.

Luther from bioengineering who had lost most of his brilliance when he'd been infected just stared at them. His speech had become more hesitant since his recovery.

"We don't even have the…equipment," he said, "It's…not adequately powered by our…current generators."

Jacobs looked at every face in the room looking back at him for direction.

"We'll find a way to increase power," he said, "Walter; you start in on the formulas on 113 and look for vulnerabilities."

"It has none," Walter said, "Damn if Will didn't create the end of the world while trying to deal with his issues with his damn father."

Jacobs didn't care about all that, it was the past, what he wanted was a virus that could wipe out all the apes. To counter the impact of 113 which had circled the globe, leaving a trail of smarter apes and dead humans, until with no one left to infect, it crept back into the shadows somewhere.

Caesar had walked out of his own meeting because Kobas had crashed it to challenge for a position on the council. He didn't trust the shifty chimpanzee as far as he could see but while he'd been busy getting things onto a more orderly course, Kobas had been lobbying for support of his alternate game plan. He had jumped onto the orangutans' bandwagon of wanting to do research on humans.

More invasive than just sticking them in a cage at the zoo and putting them on display, beginning with determining what had made them so evil. Caesar knew that the answers to that question wouldn't be answered through dissection with a scalpel. But he also knew that Kobas interest in experimentation tied in with his own experiences being a laboratory specimen simply identified with a number who had been at the mercy of scientists' experimentation.

In other words, Kobas wanted some payback. The other apes if they understood that didn't appear to care and the orangutans heartily hooted their support when Kobas signed about creating a research committee on the humans. He suggested that Maurice head it, and it be staffed by chimpanzees and orangutans since the gorillas had shown little interest in science.

Caesar didn't like it. He didn't feel that they needed to cut humans open to study them as had been done to apes. Enslaving them was a more practical purpose for them to help them build the apes' version of civilization. But he did realize that the more information they could find on humans, the more they could learn not to be like them while creating their own society. So he had approved it even though Kara had signed to them that they were going down a destructive past.

A couple of chimpanzees tried to drag her out of the meeting but Caesar stopped them saying all apes would be heard on the issues they faced together.

The great apes anyway, no one thought the gibbons could do anything else but serve as messengers for them.

Caesar listed a condition, that there be no invasive research done on humans at all, but when Kobas and the orangutans began to complain about that, he decided that it would be taken to the vote of the full panel. He believed with Maurice at the helm that it would be enough to prevent it from being done at all.

But as it turned out, he couldn't have been more wrong.


	25. Chapter 25

Kara saw him several days later after the meeting. Caesar had settled into allowing Maurice to run the new research committee They had headed off to the zoo to discuss how to best observe the human's behavior in captivity. Armando and the other gorillas had gone to inventory the weapons stash found at the police station and Alisa had taken it upon herself to check out some overgrown fruit orchards that had been discovered a few miles east of Seattle.

The tension that had been developing between the different factions of apes hadn't been lost on either one of them. Kara said that they needed to put their animosity aside and engage in some fellowship, using tactile contact to build their relationships, to strengthen the ties that had grown between them during the initial uprising. A common adversary had drawn them together but it hadn't lasted long.

Caesar signed back that when he had first encountered apes, they had all been segregated by species, and hadn't crossed those lines at all until he had taught them that they shared more in common than differences. Even before they had grown smart, he had sown the seeds of solidarity between them, but in the relative calm that separated one storm from the next, they had fallen into dissention.

They still needed to work together as long as the humans still remained in large enough numbers to be a threat to their new society. Their populations had nearly been depleted but he knew pockets of them remained, beyond those that had been enslaved or caged by them. The gorillas had wanted to send out search parties while the other chimpanzees thought they should be squashed before they were allowed to regroup.

Kara thought perhaps a truce could be developed between the two sides but Caesar wouldn't hear that. He opposed using them for dissection or any invasive research but he didn't believe they should be free either. In the beginning of the revolution, he had hopes that apes and humans could coexist together in some form of system where the world could be shared between them.

But humans had never been good at sharing anything be it land or other resources even with each other. When Cro-Magnums had first arrived, it hadn't taken long for the earlier developing Neanderthals to disappear from the canvas. Mankind had driven many animal and plant species to extinction. Rainforests had been carved away from where they had once dominated, serving as the planet's lungs but not without a price as deforestation had led to the exposure of humans to a wide sort of virulent diseases including Ebola. Caesar had learned all about this when Will's father had been alive and his cognitive abilities had been at their sharpest.

It hadn't taken him long during the revolution to realize that mankind couldn't be trusted, even those who had meant him and his kind no harm. His lot was with his own species, a message he honed into the man who'd raised him when he refused to leave the imprisonment of the sanctuary to go home with him. But his time with Will had led him to harbor some hope that they could still coexist until what had happened with Cornelia, and that final meeting with Will in the forest. The first time that Caesar had ordered his kind to kill.

And it had been more than in self defense, it had been to send a message to humans not to come after them. He and the others had waited for an even more powerful response from more people but it never arrived.

What had mystified Caesar had not been mankind's harsh treatment of his kind but how it treated its own kind. Beginning back with how Will's neighbor had harassed his father who had mistakenly got in his car and crashed it. The prejudice he saw by certain groups of people against others. Murder and other crimes depicted on the news broadcasts he used to watch. Man killed man with impunity it seemed, a concept foreign to the apes.

"It's their way," he signed to Kara. After all Will had been cut down by them, when trying to negotiate Caesar's safety. Maybe the scientist had some belief that the two species man and ape could share the same rung of the evolutionary ladder but as it turned out the majority of mankind hadn't been prepared for the likes of Caesar. If it hadn't been for the plague would he or those other apes be alive?

Apes couldn't go down that same treacherous path; they wouldn't follow in the footsteps of the human race and turn on each other. Kara had her ideas about how to avoid that road and so did he. Negotiating with the humans wasn't an option.

Kara would work on him but she hadn't seen what he had seen. She and her kind had sat out most of the uprising waiting to see how it would fall out.

"I go you."

He looked at her and considered it. He'd pick his squad to take with him east very carefully but perhaps Kara would play a pivotal role. He'd think about that some more and run it across others like Maurice, Armando and Alisa. He'd thought about taking his key lieutenants but some had to stay behind to lead the others and keep an eye on the likes of Kobas and any others that might be aligned with him.

He looked over to where the other chimpanzee conferred with others like him and it made him nervous. If he went on this scouting trip, what would be waiting for him when he returned?

Jacobs looked at the photograph of Virus 113 that had been taken before it'd gotten loose. A bit blurred and grainy, he made out its shape along with Alex, a female scientist.

"It looks like Ebola, see the small hook at the end of the strand?"

Jacobs nodded.

"Why does it look almost hairy?"

"Because it's an airborne virus and that hair as you call it is a protein coating that protects it from the environment."

Jacobs sighed.

"I was the one who approved it when Rodman said he wanted to make sure the human body didn't neutralize it. Like it did with 112."

Alex didn't know how to respond to that.

"Well he and the others succeeded in doing that if that was their intention," she said, "I'm glad I was assigned to the hair growth product development instead of 113."

Jacobs fingered 113.

"We need to study the protein coat to see if there's any way to insert new DNA inside of it," he said, "I'd be interested in seeing why it looks so much like Ebola."

Alex shrugged.

"Will would never have used an agent like that when he tinkered with it, would he? I mean the guy was reckless but even he…"

Jacobs sighed again.

"Who knows, all the techs who worked directly with him are dead. Starting with the guy that was found dead after a breach in the safety measures taken."

"They used ventilators and full body suits didn't they?"

Jacobs nodded.

"One of the apes convulsed while being treated with the new virus and somehow the virus infected someone."

Alex shook her head.

"That's all it takes, but god, we didn't have the facilities for something like Ebola."

Jacobs rubbed his forehead.

"It gets worse; some of the canisters came up missing even before the apes broke in the lab."

Alex might have looked shock if she weren't so worn out already. The virus had wiped out most of her energy and when she'd woken up from a state of unconsciousness, she felt like someone she didn't recognize.

"I can't remember most of what I knew," she said, "My mind it's like someone erased a computer hard drive and what I do…it's fuzzy."

"You have to try," Jacobs said, "We've got to come up with a way to kill them. If humanity's going down so must they."

Alex laughed without mirth.

"Good luck, I'm afraid we've lived long enough to see an evolutionary shift."

Jacobs gazed at the virus in front of him, an elegance to its design that belied its lethality.

"Like hell, they're going to succeed us," he said, "This is our planet."

She shook her head.

"We destroyed ourselves, and we destroyed everyone else with us."

Jacobs couldn't believe that it had really been their fault. Rodman had been the one who wanted a leaner, meaner virus to cure his father's illness. The rest of them had been along for the ride.

"They should have just nuked the entire city before either they or the virus escaped."

Jacobs shook his head.

"Maybe they didn't have a chance."

Caroline and Burke watched the chimpanzees, three of them gathering in front of their nesting area. They appeared to be neatening their surroundings before going out and exploring the area. They'd been doing that more and more for longer periods of time. Following them had been difficult because the apes were more athletic and skilled at moving through the forest.

"You think they're scouts," she asked.

He nodded.

"Probably of some type, or they could just be trying to regroup with others of their kind."

She watched the littlest one emulate its parents.

"They're a family maybe from a zoo?"

The two of them were crouched behind a brushy area, watching the apes. Both of them were used to long-term surveillance, he through his military experience and she because she'd done this before in Africa.

"Could be, but they've caught that smart bug going around."

She realized that to be the case based on what she saw them do and they knew rudimentary signing even the youngest one. Maybe they'd been part of a research project. She'd picked up some sign language living with Caesar and Will but she couldn't read what they were communicating from her.

She needed to get closer but Burke had chosen this vantage point so they wouldn't risk being seen.

"You used to doing this," she asked him.

He adjusted his position again.

"Yeah when I was doing military operations," he said, "back when I was a Marine."

He hadn't really talked that much about himself and next to nothing about his service to the country's defense.

"You saw combat didn't you?"

He paused, and then nodded.

"A few times, I gave them 10 years of my life," he said, "Kathy…she, she was my wife, she wanted me to quit because she got tired of packing up and moving all the time."

She looked at him, so he'd been married at some point yet she no longer was in his life. But then everyone in their group had lost loved ones in the past few months, too many to name.

"Yeah I moved around a lot when I was doing research," she said, "I lived out of a duffel bag, ready to travel."

He smiled.

"Me too, or a pack out in the field…then when I went into the private sector, and did the same thing."

She furrowed her brow.

"You were a mercenary?"

"Security for hire," he said, "Mostly in Africa and the Middle East where the biggest demand was for protection."

She knew that her time in Africa had been broken up by civil wars and other revolts in several of its countries and that the boundaries of some of them had been redrawn more than once. By the time she took the job in San Francisco's zoo taking care of the great apes, she'd been more than ready to settle down in one place. But she'd still kept herself busy with her work, to the expense of the rest of her life. Until she met Will and Caesar.

"How did Kathy handle that?"

His face froze for a moment and she saw him in the past. She'd grown used to members of their party retreat to the days and years before the plague but it seemed different with Burke.

"She…she didn't like it much."

Caroline nodded.

"It's tough having relationships when you're all over the place and don't have any place to call home."

He still looked a bit distant.

"Yeah, well none of us are home now."

The realization of that always hit her like a sharp pain as it had the first time. When she had left the home she shared with Will in San Francisco for the last time, with some of his journals in her pack. She'd returned there after spending countless days trying to nurse her dying friends from the zoo even though she hadn't worked there by the end. She wondered what happened to their house, sitting there empty and quiet in a city that had turned from a vibrant urban center of culture and prosperity to a couple weeks of chaos and panic, as that center collapsed.

But by the time she left, it had fallen eerily quiet with no signs of life except the breeze rustling through rows of leafy trees and dogs wandering in packs through the empty, debris filled streets.

She'd come many miles since then but she still remembered sitting on the porch with Will, their arms around each other looking out into the reassuringly regular activity of suburbia for the night.

That last morning of the old world, she'd woken up next to him and seen only the familiar and had gotten up not knowing that by the time night fell, the end would begin. She wondered if it had been like that for Burke, and occasionally glanced at him sideways to read him as they watched the apes disappear into the trees of the vast forest.


	26. Chapter 26

The two of them sat in a kitchen eating takeout food but Will struggled a bit because he had injured his hand in the altercation with Dodge over Caesar's care at the sanctuary. She had her own way of getting his mind off of it for a while and afterward, they hit the food.

She still couldn't get over what he'd done.

"You really punched him?"

Will nodded.

"I did."

She chuckled in response.

"I've been wanting to do that since the day I met him."

Will looked at her ruefully.

"I wouldn't advise it. My hand's killing me."

She watched him try to use his chopsticks.

"Here let me help you out."

She feeds him a bite of broccoli and beef, but he didn't stop talking.

"I'm going to get him out of there."

She read the determination in his eyes and knew he'd never stop trying.

"I know you will."

"And I'm going to get my dad back too."

Caroline woke up in her bed, staring out into the dark quietness that surrounded her in the cabin. She remembered her dream about the night after Will had his first physical confrontation with Dodge, who they both knew mistreated Caesar. Dodge had been larger and taller than Will but he didn't care, not when it came to protecting those he loved.

Just like Caesar had attacked the neighbor because he had been trying to protect Charles from what he'd perceived to be a threat. At Caesar's stage of development as an adolescent male chimpanzee, it wasn't uncommon to feel that possessiveness over the family unit. But biting off the neighbor's finger had been enough had been enough to get the police and animal control on the mission of taking Caesar away.

He had faced losing both the ape he raised like a son and his own father which had pulled him back towards restarting the trials on chimpanzees again.

That's when he began engineering Virus 113 as it turned out.

She just lay back in bed, her hands on her abdomen rubbing it as she tried to get back to sleep. But as she waited to feel sleepy again, she wondered what her baby would be like when it was born. How she wished it had been different, that she and Will had been able to raise their first child together in a much different world. The one she'd spent so much time taking for granted.

Her biggest concerns would be picking out a name, the best place for it to be born, balancing her career with motherhood and finding the best educational opportunities. Will had already raised an ape child, how would he fare with his own? Would his own child's milestones of accomplishment measure up to Caesar's?

Those questions would never be answered now. Will would never see his child be born and it wouldn't take place in a hospital. The only education he or she would receive would be to learn how to survive in a world now hostile to humans. It would be a difficult struggle for both of them to endure while most of their kind died off. She didn't yet know how she would do it but somehow her child would make it, would grow and thrive even if it took everything she had left.

Alisa had signed asking again for a baby for them. Caesar just didn't have the answer she wanted. It was too early in the genesis of their new society to think about adding a baby to the mix.

Too much could happen to it, in a world just beginning to belong to them. Besides if they were getting ready to go on a journey, it might not be safe for a young child. If he ever were a father, Caesar had no intention of being away from his young. He'd grown up, his first memories of family being through the relationship between Will and his own father even when Charles had not been himself.

And he'd never known his biological parents except that his mother had been killed when he'd been a baby, an account provided haltingly by Will.

Maurice came in to tell him that the noninvasive research protocol for the humans had been agreed upon though Kobas had attended the meeting and had been adamantly opposed to it. Caesar didn't feel the anger the other chimpanzee carried inside of him not having been raised in a cage inside a laboratory the subject of various experiments including the one which had made him smart.

Caesar had communicated with Maurice his desire to leave Seattle and the older orangutan just nodded. He wouldn't be going with his close comrade because Caesar needed a core group of apes he knew well to remain in charge of operations in Seattle which would be a key city in the new world.

Armando would remain with him as would Ursa. But Caesar still remained undecided what to do about Kobas. If he left him behind, would he make an aggressive move to take control and if so, what would happen?

Seattle remained key to their occupation in the north western part of the country, the part of it they'd felt drawn to after leaving San Francisco. But the alternative was to include his rival in his scouting team so he could watch him more carefully.

He remembered the adage of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. He wasn't sure he'd count the other chimpanzee as a foe but he felt they'd been at loggerheads almost since the beginning.

After all Kobas had led the charge to massacre the armed forces that had followed Will into the Muir Woods after they had shot Will. Even though he'd tried to attack him before the arrival of the squadron, and Caesar had forced him away from his human father.

But Caesar had nodded when the other apes looked to his leadership and then they had attacked the men en masse and not one of them had crawled out of there. He had taken so much care not to harm humans while they fought their way out of the city but after what had happened to Cornelia, his resolve had been broken.

When Alisa came up behind him again, he just looked at her. He looked towards the day when they would create the next generation of chimpanzees together, when everything became more settled.

More orderly and less dissent in their ranks…and when Alisa left him again, his eyes drifted back on where he hid the photo of him and his human family in the Muir forest at a picnic.

He remembered the woman who had moved in with Will, the one who had taken care of him. She had been inside a car and he had almost approached her to take her back to where Will had fallen but then another squad of armed humans had arrived so he went back to rejoin the apes.

Not knowing what had happened to her after that and not seeing her when he ventured through the deserted city. Had she succumbed to the plague like so many others? Had she found her own way out of San Francisco and if so, where had she gone?

Armando came in again and told him that several gibbons had returned with communications from some place east of Seattle. So they both went off to find out what their messengers had learned.

Carlton shot both Caroline and Burke irritated looks when they walked into the mess that morning. He still remained adamant that the chimpanzees that had settled in the woods near the other encampment remained a serious threat even though they hadn't even sought out the humans let alone attacked them.

Burke and Caroline settled at a table to eat oatmeal and some juice that had been discovered at a nearby canteen in powered form. She had to spend the morning helping some other people build a coop to hold some chickens that had been running around pecking for bugs in the dirt. They hadn't known where they came from or whether they'd been part of the camp but they did know that both eggs and meat could be taken from them.

While she did that, Burke would be reinforcing the security of where they kept their stash of weapons to defend themselves if the need arose. Carlton walked over to their table with his tray.

"Why you two holding out on the rest of us about the apes," he demanded.

Caroline looked up at him.

"We're not holding back, we're just observing them," she said, "We need to know a lot more before we launch a strategy on what to do next."

He snorted.

"I say we kill them," he said, "Wait until they come back to their nest and just pull the trigger or the pin out of a couple of grenades."

She just shook her head at him.

"You want to bring violence in the midst of what we're trying to build when it might not be necessary?"

"Might not be is not good enough," he said, "I've seen what they can do."

She didn't look away.

"So have I, and I've seen what happens when people jump to conclusions."

He just looked at her hostility on his face to the point it almost frightened her but she couldn't allow that in the new world.

"You don't know anything," he said, "These apes are going to not stop until they cover every inch of this earth. We've got to stop them."

She just sighed remembering when she'd seen men rush off to do that but she knew how powerful the apes had been back then, which must be nothing compared to how they stacked up now.

The humans as it stood at least in their neck of the woods couldn't compete with an army that could be attracted by the killing of a small group of them.

"These ones haven't done anything aggressive," she said, "In fact, they appear to be keeping to themselves and haven't merged with any other sets of them."

"That won't be for long."

She knew that would be a possibility but Carlton wasn't thinking rationally, he was steered entirely through emotion, the kind that comes from traumatic loss. She felt influenced by what she had faced but she had to push that all deeper inside of her and focus on survival. Those who didn't do that put themselves and everyone else at risk.

Carlton just walked away from them to another table and she and Burke watched him go. not trusting him at all.

"He's going to try something…and soon."

She nodded.

"I know and we can't watch him or the others he hangs with all the time."

He rubbed his callused hands together.

"I understand why he wants to do it but now's just not the time to strike back, not until we're more organized, and have larger numbers."

She knew what he was saying but one reason she'd wanted to keep an eye on the chimpanzees was because she wondered if she could make contact with them, maybe they were friendly instead of foes.

After all, she remembered how it had been with Caesar


	27. Chapter 27

One month later…

Alisa just looked at Caesar with a hurt expression on her face, when he walked into their place. They had moved away from the trees because Caesar needed to be where the action was when it came to rebuilding the infrastructure of Seattle. The power had stayed on after two brief outages including one that sparked a transformer explosion burning two city blocks.

She had barely seen him in the past several weeks but she knew that he'd been spending a lot of time with Kara. She knew that when the bonobos first arrived that the balance would shift in their favor. They just had that way of communicating that swayed the opinions of those who originally doubted their intentions. The female chimpanzees that had seen their mates spend more time with Kara and the other bonobos had grumbled about it. Alisa hadn't worried until she would stay up late waiting for Caesar to come home from some meeting or travels that he had taken with Kara to discuss their future society.

"Caesar no here night…"

She had signed that more and more frequently in the past couple weeks and he just placated her by placing his hands on her shoulders and staring into her eyes. Much like he had done for Cornelia though Alisa didn't know about her. But Alisa was getting more difficult to soothe over his being somewhat distant. She signed "Baby I want" and Caesar kept putting her off there. Was he talking about babies with Kara, she wondered.

Kara had moved ahead in other ways as well, which greatly angered some of the other chimpanzees including of course Kobas. The larger chimpanzees resented the bonobos who had sat out the revolution and hadn't put their freedom and lives on the line, only emerging after the victories were pretty much assured to assert themselves. The gorillas didn't mind them as much and the orangutans had become more focused on creating a political structure that would be representative of all groups even as they wondered if they were being left behind in other ways.

Caesar had felt the apes begin to splinter themselves off socially as well like they had been when he had first encountered them at the sanctuary. He kept reminding them they needed to stay united, brought out the analogy of the stick versus the bundle of sticks to drive his point home. But as he saw Seattle slowly begin to resemble if not utopia at least someplace where they could live surrounded by a natural environment including trees which reached high into the clouds.

Like the Muir Woods, which he missed. Staying in San Francisco, the birthplace of their evolution and revolution hadn't been an option. When Will had joined his father in death, he felt the ties dissolve to the place he'd known all his life. Even the lady vet hadn't been around though her fate remained unknown.

Alisa stepped in front of him.

"You no want Alisa"

Caesar shook his head and rubbed her with his hands to soothe her, not understanding why she was so upset. She wavered on whether or not she wanted to go on his trek with him or that they should both remain behind in the home that they were building. More messengers had come up from the South avoiding L.A. which had been the scene of a some massive explosions in the downtown driving both apes and the remaining humans away, as whispers of radioactivity began to travel. Had the humans made a last ditch expert to destroy a major city to avoid invasion, or had it been the apes? Even Caesar had no idea because the major band of apes that had been congregated in L.A. running the streets and climbing the businesses hadn't traveled up north. They didn't seem interested in meeting up with other apes, the messengers said, but were heading south to what had been the American border.

They had the smart virus surely because it had traveled down there wiping out most of the human tenants but enhancing the apes' own intelligence. Caesar wondered if any of the groups that were formed would continue to remain individualized or if they'd unite. But then looking at his own group being caught between his guidance and the continuing influence of Kobas, he knew the pitfalls.

Kobas had agreed to go with him on the trip east and Caesar knew it's be riddled with tension the two of them being so close together but if he left him behind, he'd return with the other ape wresting control away from him and his lieutenants.

He'd pack a light bag to keep them moving as quickly needed and he went to his desk and pulled one item out to pack. Dangling from the chain in front of him, he stared at it, as it twirled.

He'd made a promise after all.

Jacobs paced the hallway outside what had been used as a makeshift laboratory awaiting the latest news on whether the electron microscope would be successfully repaired. They needed it to get a good look at Virus 113 rather than relying on outdated photos of it. They had tried to mine the virus from some of its victims, but had no luck with any of the rotting bodies that had been found until they found a couple that looked promising. Will had left journals on a flash drive on the background of both 113 and its precursor, 112. Jacobs knew when he reread them that Will had known that some of the replications speeds of the newer viral agent had tossed up a red flag as to its virulence but 112 had been so benign.

Luke came out and looked at him.

"We hooked it up to the generator and it's taking a lot of power," he said, "fortunately we have a city filled with gasoline."

Jacobs knew that the gas stations hadn't been hit hard for their fuel because the virus had struck ground zero too fast for many people to even try to escape by leaving town.

"Do it…we can send out some of the other techs to go siphon off gas when we need it."

Luke sighed.

"Many of them can barely function as it is, between the virus and the constant working around the clock."

Jacobs didn't want to hear it. Complaining about what they needed to do to adapt to the new world wasn't going to ensure they survived it. The human race was at stake, probably on its last legs and the apes were about to ascend to the top of the evolutionary scale. He'd be damned if he'd let that happen while he still lived.

Another man walked out with a limp, and he looked up to see Landon, who had been sickened by the virus and discovered just outside the sanctuary he had managed with his son Dodge. Jacobs couldn't get much out of his muddled speech after he started recovering except that some damn ape had killed his son the night of the revolution.

Caesar of course, the ape that had caused him and Dodge no shortage of trouble since he'd arrived. Showing up dressed like a human and then stirring up all kinds of trouble and unrest in a place where there had never been any complaints from the residents. The way Landon saw it, Caesar was some over pampered, under disciplined ape who'd been allowed to run wild by those who tried to raise him in a suburban home. Small chimpanzees might be cute but invariably they grew up to become dominant, surly and downright vicious adults.

"What's going on?"

Jacobs looked at the befuddled Landon who slurred his words. The virus had struck him with just enough mercy to allow him to live where many died. But he'd been clearly damaged by it and the loss of his son. Jacobs had to deal with Landon when a desperate Will plead with him to use his money and influence to buy Caesar's release from the sanctuary. But Landon had chuckled when he saw that Caesar wanted none of that, the damn ape wanted to stay in his cage. Maybe he was smart after all.

"We're trying to get the special microscope working so we can get a closer look at the virus," he said, "We need to engineer it to kill the apes."

Landon nodded, clearly getting that.

"They all need to die," he said, "If we're dying, they'll go with us."

Jacobs nodding thinking he'd found himself an ally in him.

Caroline looked at Glen who had examined her pregnancy. She'd begun to grow thicker in the waist and had to look at finding clothes that would fit better. Not the easiest of tasks but Ruth had helped her with it. She guessed she'd better get used to it because for the next few months, she was only going to get bigger.

Ruth smiled at her after Caroline had told her that the baby had received another bill of health.

"How do you feel," she asked.

Always a mixed question for Caroline because physically she had been relieved to leave the morning sickness and fatigue behind but as the pregnancy progressed, it felt more tangible to her which made her think of Will.

"Good…but I keep having these dreams about him."

Ruth didn't need to ask about who, because she knew Caroline meant the father of her baby.

"What are they like?"

Caroline paused to think about it as Ruth leaned forward to listen. She'd found a good friend in the older woman.

"Just memories of the past before he died," she said, "Things we used to do before it all got crazy…the littlest things."

Ruth nodded.

"That's not surprising is it?"

"No but the dreams are so clear, almost like the real experiences themselves," she said, "and then I wake up and I can almost see and feel him."

Sadness crept in her voice as it still did sometimes but she didn't feel so much as if the man she loved had been ripped away from her. She just wished he could have been here with her preparing for the birth of their child. But he hadn't even known she'd been pregnant.

"It's hard losing the ones we love and so many at one time," Ruth said, "I just try to take each day as it comes, one at a time."

"Yeah I do too, it's just sometimes," she said, "Like last night I dreamed about one of the Christmases we spent together with Caesar and Charles."

Caesar had loved the holiday just like any child would and had bought into Santa Claus, watching for him from the window of the attic.

"I didn't know when I said goodbye to him that it was really goodbye."

Ruth sighed.

"I think a lot of us did that."

Caroline reached for a pitcher of water and poured herself a glass.

"How's Burke doing?"

Caroline smiled at the question and sipped her water.

"He's been great…he's been looking after me and I think…"

She just shook her head and Ruth's brows rose.

"What?"

Caroline paused.

"I'm starting to have feelings about him that I don't know what to do with," she said, "I loved Will. I still do."

"That's only natural. Love doesn't end with a person's death but that doesn't mean you can't find it again with another person."

Caroline digested that.

"I didn't want anyone else," she said, "I knew…I was thinking days before the apes broke out that I'd found what I wanted, I was happy with our life even when it got chaotic because we were together."

Ruth smiled at her.

"Did you talk to him about this?"

Caroline shook her head.

"No…I'm a woman who's pregnant with another man's child," she said, "and I don't know what the future holds."

"None of us do but that doesn't mean we stop living…and loving."

Ruth got up then to get something to eat, but she patted Caroline's shoulder as she walked by leaving the younger woman to consider her words.


	28. Chapter 28

When she hugged him tightly, she could smell his cologne, his favorite and hers too. Most people didn't see the tender side of Will except for those closest to him. She remembered what it had been like when she first met him when he brought Caesar in to be examined and stitched up after a confrontation with a neighbor. The one who had disliked him from the start and made trouble for him…until the day he had rushed out to see Charles get in his car and crash it.

He had threatened Charles who had suffered from dementia that had been staved away by a miracle drug but had returned because Alzheimer's disease had been a progressive illness and soon pulled ahead in the competition between it and the virus created to stop it.

The first virus, 112 but the second one had been different. It had been accelerative in its effects on the apes' brains and had been lethal to humans in ways Caroline hadn't understood but Will had and he still had created it, an act of scientists not nature. Why it had manifested itself like Ebola, she had no idea but those who died from it had experienced excruciating and gory deaths. Including most of her friends and colleagues and maybe her family as well….she sighed as she sat on her bed in her cabin about ready to lie down and fall asleep. She hadn't eaten much for dinner because she'd been so exhausted from working hard. But her mind remained alert as it did in a world which mandated that skill.

When Caesar had attacked the neighbor, he had realized too late what he had done and he had hugged Charles who had been bloodied by the altercation. Will had run out to see the two of them together and the neighbors who had gathered around to witness it, stepping backwards, retreating almost in unison when Caesar looked at them. Will had told her later about it and she had sighed, because the police and animal control had come for him. But the decision was made to stick him in the primate sanctuary with Landon and Dodge…two sadists as it turned out. She knew Dodge had died but didn't know what became of his father Landon; if the apes hadn't killed him then the plague had done that.

Will had to leave Caesar locked up confused in the sanctuary and walk away from him. Caroline had been with him and she felt the loss keenly…she had helped raise him herself. She had stitched up that initial wound and then had given him periodic examinations while Will worked up the nerve to pursue her. Not that it had taken much because she had liked him a lot at first glance, when he had shown how devoted he'd been to rearing Caesar as his own child. She had warned him about Caesar's future as an adult chimpanzee but Will had just smiled and wrestled with Caesar on his bed before the chimpanzee had scampered off to look out the window in the attic.

"You might want to think about open space," she had told him.

Will had done that and the bond between them had grown even as the freedom of the forest had stretched it at least until Caesar heeded Will's voice calling him back to head to the car.

He had worn a harness and a leash. That had confused Caesar when he saw the large dog on a leash like him but Will had assured him he wasn't a pet but the scientist was his father. Even though that wound up puzzling him….until Will finally told him the truth after taking him to the laboratory where he had worked and where Caesar's mother had given birth to him and died.

Caroline had felt uncomfortable with it, she knew there was something very different about the ape that she had treated but didn't know why until Will finally told her. She sighed now months later about what it had been like back then. Caesar's departure had left a hole in their lives even as their own relationship continued to blossom.

"Hey are you still up?"

She looked up to see Burke dressed in a old shirt and sweats…attire that they'd found at the camp. The weather had turned chilly at night so they had looked for warmer clothing.

"Yes…I guess I've been thinking…"

He stood by the doorway gazing at her, his body always tensed as if prepared to fight or to flee. He had grown more wary since the discovery of the trio of chimpanzees. But nothing had indicated so far that they intended harm or even had been in contact with other apes.

"About what…?"

She rested her hand on her stomach which had barely begun to show. Her tie to the past and the man who had been close to her and to Caesar before the plague hit.

"Caesar….what he must be thinking….now that the world is theirs…"

Burke shook his head at her.

"No…I refuse to believe that's what is ahead for us," he said, "We're going to win this war."

She sighed.

"We've already lost 90% of us," she said, "to the plague and others weakened…They became stronger while we weakened."

And that's how the world had become turned upside down. A world her baby would see when it was born.

"The strongest will survive and hopefully pass their immunity to the next generations."

Caroline knew that was possible but a gamble even for her own baby. She hadn't gotten sick but what about Will? If he hadn't been shot to death would he have survived the plague that followed? After all, so much of the population in San Francisco had been decimated in a matter of weeks.

And would he be able to live with himself if he did? The virus had his signature on it and when the lab aides had asked him why they were risking so much by working on 113, he told them to keep working. They had all stood in a semi circle and watched the latest results on the retrovirus's replication and they all knew it was too fast. Too many chances for mistakes or more appropriately labeled mutations and 113 had mutated from exposure to some other germ agent perhaps inside of the earliest recipients. Will had tried to warn Jacobs of what might happen but Jacobs had other ideas in mind than extinguishing 113. Will had died not knowing of the cataclysm that would soon follow, had that been a blessing in disguise? But she couldn't even think about that because she wanted him alive with her right here and now.

"I don't know what will happen Burke," she said, "If it doesn't, that might be the last generation of us."

She knew Burke would always resist that as long as he could do that. Like he must have resisted a lot of things in his life. She knew that even though she didn't know what they were.

"They'll live…."

He seemed so sure and she didn't want to shatter his hopes. She had to hope the same for her baby. But what would Caesar's reaction be if he knew? She wondered what he had thought about her relationship with his surrogate father, was she like a stepmother? But Will hadn't had time to explain to Caesar about how humans paired off with one another in relationships which were imperative to survival of the species. Caesar would be in the same situation when he matured into adulthood to find a mate and become a father.

She remembered the day she had moved into the Victorian house near Golden Gate Park Will had shared with Caesar and his father. Carrying some boxes and suitcases she'd moved her things in to share space with them after she and Will had decided that they were ready for that step. They loved each other and wanted to be together and they sat down and explained that to Caesar. Will signed back and forth with the chimpanzee.

"She here live us…"

Caesar's brow furrowed…and she saw the look he gave Will, showcasing the tight bonds between them that had existed back then. The ape had finally sighed and sidled over to her placing his hand on her shoulder looking at her. Caroline knew not to be afraid or concerned but to look at him back as Caesar considered her as a family unit member. Will had wrestled with Caesar after that and the three of them had settled down for a while before preparing dinner, their first as a family living together. Caesar's presence had livened up the house…his toys everywhere, games that he outgrew so quickly…except chess. But he also had to learn to share the only father he'd ever known with someone else.

Will and Caroline went out quite a bit as young couples did leaving Caesar alone in the attic, one that no longer served as his whole world given that he knew what lay out there. He had watched the little girl grow up before his eyes, from a shy child who had waved at him, to a tomboy girl who played catch in front of the house. Caesar had gotten out and had tried to play with her and her friends. She had smiled at him then too and when they played catch, it didn't take Caesar long to figure out that the other boys were trying to keep the ball away from him, tossing it to each other over his head. The little girl had looked at them, a pained expression on her face as if to tell them to stop but then they started jeering at him and Caesar realized he wasn't like them after all.

When she'd been a teenager leaving the house and getting into cars with other people to leave, he'd wonder if he would do the same but his world seemed to be more narrowly confined than ever. The larger, he grew with his awareness matching his growth, the more his isolation grew.

Caroline had watched Will try to bridge that gap the best he could but Caesar wasn't a human child. He was a chimpanzee who would grew up into a powerful adult capable of ripping a human's face off and temperament wise, territorial and unpredictable. She had tried to explain that to him in quieter moments but Will's mind had been focused on the Caesar who had depended on him for guidance and rearing not the adolescent questioning his identity.

She hadn't even seen him since the day on the Golden Gate Bridge when she and Will had tried to find him. Will had gone running through all the chaos of confrontation between man and ape, yelling his name but Caesar hadn't listened. She had tried to find him weaving her way through dented cars with shattered windshields to where he had stood staring at Caesar who looked back at Will, with emotions in his human like eyes that she would never forget. Next to him, was a motionless smaller ape who appeared dead. The rage that had been on Caesar's face had been diluted by resignation as he'd reached down to embrace the limp chimpanzee. Caroline looked at Will and then she remembered what he had done earlier at the sanctuary. What he had meant to do to Caesar.

Caesar took off then with his army of apes leaving the bridge in smoldering ruins without looking back…and Will, he just looked so broken down. She'd gone over to wrap her arms around him while people including police officers milled around them and held him close to her.

Now she looked back and she wondered about Caesar and where he might be now. She wondered if he'd witnessed the last few moments of Will's life and whether or not they had come to terms with their relationship with each other.

"So you going to get some sleep?"

She looked up at him and nodded.

"In a minute…," she said, "Burke did you ever have children?"

She saw starkness in his eyes but it soon passed as he shook his head.

"I come from a military family," he said, "though one of my brothers wound up working for NASA."

She digested that because he really hadn't told her much about his family roots or his past for that matter.

"He was an astronaut…dead now probably," he said, "But not here."

She listened to him as her eyes began to grow heavier as he talked about him.

Landon just cursed at Jacobs in what used to be the laboratory's cafeteria.

"We need to just find some nukes and blow them all to Hell."

Jacobs' brows rose even though this hadn't been the first time that Landon had raised that issue.

"You mean kill off the rest of humanity with them?"

Landon shrugged.

"Most of us are dead anyway," he said, "it's the only way to be sure they're dead…wiped off the face of the earth,"

"A new virus could do that."

Landon laughed his bitterness apparent inside the confines of the trashed area by the kitchen.

"Your track record with messing with them isn't very good," he said, "What if you just make one that'll finish the rest of us off anyway?"

Jacobs just looked at the unkempt man who'd lost his son who from what Jacobs could gather hadn't been much of a contribution from humanity anyway.

"We've got the generator up to the electron microscope."

Landon just laughed bitterly again.

"Big deal…those apes have to be taken out and finding some nukes and getting the job done…"

Jacobs sighed. It was a bit more complicated than how he'd made it sound. Nukes were held in tightly secured places, had clearance and launch codes, none of which any of them knew. And then there was always cross contamination through radiation if any of it drifted to where humans still lived. But he knew that if they could create a virus fatal to the apes then it could be engineered specifically at them. Even with their technology compromised, he thought they would get it done.

"I want to take out that troublemaking leader myself."

Jacobs knew he'd been talking about Caesar who had roots back to the laboratory but had never lived there. It didn't take long for Jacobs to figure out that Caesar had let the revolution. But he figured the chimpanzee probably would be long gone because the city had grown rather desolate.

Just as the world soon would as well of human life even as the monuments built by it endured.


	29. Chapter 29

Kara had signed to him as he had walked away from Armando and the other gorillas. Caesar had glanced at her after Armando had given him the news that the team of chimpanzees and orangutans had wanted to do experiments on some of the humans held captive at the zoo.

"You stop?"

He signed back.

"I stop."

She gave him a sympathetic look as they walked back to the abandoned restaurant that had served as a meeting place between the two of them and representatives from the bonobos and the chimpanzees. Kobas had of course boycotted the meetings; he'd been too busy building up his alliances, Caesar knew, rather than pulling his share of the workload.

He remembered back when he had last seen Will before he had been shot when he had to stop Kobas from hurting him but then the other chimpanzee had different experiences with the scientist than he had, been a test subject with a number attached and not a surrogate child.

"He wants what you have," she said.

Caesar thought about that, thinking that there had been times when he envied the other apes that had grown up in captivity but at least knowing their identities that they were apes.

Not humans or something in between.

"He's going with us?"

Caesar nodded at her. He didn't need to tell her that he couldn't afford to keep any potential insurgents behind. Kara was just intuitive that way when it came to those around her.

"I'll keep watch."

They continued to his office where waiting was more fruit that Alisa had found for him. She hadn't asked him anymore about having offspring but had settled into working with some of the other female apes on researching something called agriculture. He encouraged that interest in her knowing that it would become important for them to learn how to gather and produce their own food to not only survive but thrive in a very different environment. Caesar and many of the other apes had no institutional memories of their various places of origin but in this foreign land to their kind, they could find substitutes. Kara sat down across from Caesar's desk and watched him burrow through one of its drawers.

"What find…keep?"

He looked up at her after pulling out some papers that had writing on them he could read but they didn't have much meaning now. The author of them had either died or left this office at some point. But Caesar had his own possessions he kept hidden there, a photo of his human family and the necklace…

Kara watched him pull it out, dangling on a leather string and it caught hre eye, the silver with etched design. It looked like a locket though she didn't know that. Caesar did because Will had told him about it. He dangled it in front of his face while it twirled on the string brushing it with one of his finger tips. It would open he knew that and he knew what existed inside. Outside of it had been the etching of a musical note, and Caesar remembered how Will's father had played the piano. Sometimes the melodies had flown from his fingertips and other times he had struggled more to hit the notes. Caesar had noticed how Will had reacted each time, his eyes lit with happiness and pride when his father played melodies that Caesar learned were by a dead composer named Mozart but when Charles had struggled….

Will had despair in his eyes as he watched him finally leaving the room, while Caesar watched both of them carefully. But as he dangled the necklace now, Kara peered at it fascinated, reaching out carefully with her own finger to touch it.

"What this?"

Caesar sighed as he laid it down on the desk in front of him.

"A promise…."

Kara looked at him curious but he didn't elaborate, the memory of that last time with Will etched so clearly inside of him, it would always be there like a scar. But the other apes would never understand how caught up he had been for most of his life, in between two different worlds now at war with one another. While he let from the side where he belonged after making his choice.

No, after it had already been made for him. For he was ape, not human even though he bore features he knew separated him from his own kind. Will had given him the necklace…the last thing he ever did after being cut down instead of Caesar. His life spared by his foster father the least he could do was honor a promise.

"What?"

He looked at Kara who inquired with his eyes but gently, not prodding forcefully, knowing it would be his choice.

But he couldn't explain it to anyone so he just took the necklace and placed it gently back in the drawer where it remained out of sight. She watched him but signed nothing. At that moment, Armando walked in the office looking at the both of them.

Caesar signed a question and the gorilla just looked at him.

"East….more like you."

Meaning that they were chimpanzees, Caesar thought, perhaps a colony, escaped from somewhere?

"How many?"

"Small…place many trees…"

Caesar frowned.

"Who saw?"

Armando sighed, the gibbons, who had been after all, serving as messengers back and forth between different groups trying to build strongholds. Caesar knew that the apes hadn't traveled far up north yet, preferring to stay where it was warmer…at least for now. But maybe when he went on his journey…

He thought of the necklace back in its drawer and wondered how he'd be able to fulfill his promise to his dying father.

Landon just sighed impatiently at Jacobs as both of them pored over plans of the laboratory. The other scientists had powered up the generators once again to try to get the electron microscope back working to take more photos of 113 taken from some cadaver samples taken from their own numbers.

Other scientists had told them that if they could get a good blueprint of the deadly virus, then perhaps they could work out possible alterations to the outer protein coat first of all before tapping into its rich genetic makeup. They knew it mutated inside a split second given its inherent instability. Jacobs remembered how Will had warned him about the acceleration effects of the newer virus when compared to its predecessor 112. But he was a company man, a corporate head not a scientist and those who were who still survived seemed to still be shell shocked over the end of the world. He had to find ways to motivate them and Landon would be perfect. His son had been his main henchman but Landon had been the brains behind the so-called sanctuary they had run where they'd harbored sadistic streaks which had ultimately caused the uprising.

"You got a family," Landon asked idly breaking the silence inside the room.

Jacobs looked up at the man who hadn't shaved in weeks, whose eyes looked bleary and he knew that this man mirrored him in ways. Jacobs had tried for a while after the plague had done its job to maintain his impeccable appearance but that hadn't worked out well. No one to impress anymore anyway, given that everyone had pretty much died including the board of directors and most of the corporation's stockholders for that matter. But it still felt strange not being at his best, wearing the same clothing for days because they hadn't really ventured out into the deserted wasteland of a city that they had created.

"What…?"

Landon didn't look at him.

"A family…like I had a son once before that son of a bitch ape killed him."

Jacobs knew which ape he'd been talking about, and that had been Will's fault for stealing company property in the first place.

"Yeah…I did…wife and two kids…"

He hadn't even seen his family since the ape revolution had taken place. His wife had frantically tried to call him twice…once from a medical ward that had been set up outside the courthouse. So many patients showing up, becoming so many bodies to be burned under the cover of night later. The breezes that blew off the ocean wafted the odors of the cremated flesh inland but Jacobs still remembered.

Some of those burned had been his family, he knew that. Will on the other hand had died in the forest, struck down before he had to live long enough to witness the consequences of both viruses he had created in the sterile environment of the laboratory that hadn't stayed there.

"I want that apes kids….I'll kill them myself…a life for a life…"

Jacobs sighed, thinking that adage had never gone away, just gone out of style for a while in the midst of civilization trying to improve itself…to prove that it was more civilized. Oh but what an illusion that had been…unveiled by one deadly virus. And now they were set to do it all over again, only this time the apes would succumb along with the humans and whatever species climbed up the evolutionary scale next would be anyone's guess.

Caroline peered through the trees, watching the chimpanzees interacting with each other while eating their mid-day noon. No scouting trips today but they had been foraging near a civilized area probably a small village because they had brought equipment to their encampment. Some of which looked electronic…she wished she could get a closer look but Burke had told her that they needed to be undetectable. The adult female chimpanzee fascinated her the most, because she the most facile use of signing. Caroline had picked up more than a few signs from living with Will and Caesar so she could pick up the conversations and translate them to Burke.

"No war strategies or detailed philosophical discussions," she said, "Just where to go look for food in the morning."

He nodded but still watched them warily. He reminded her of herself in some ways because even as she loved chimpanzees having worked with them so much, she never got too comfortable with them. Not like Will who had always believed that Caesar would remain the same as he had when he had raised him like a child until faced with the truth.

She stepped forward to get a careful look and a branch crackled beneath her feet sounding through the quiet glen. The chimpanzees all looked up in unison, almost as if sniffing the air first and then their heads turned in their direction.

"Be still…," Burke urged.

But Caroline hadn't felt threatened by their alertness. She kept watching them while Burke settled his hands on her shoulders keeping her close to him. Out of protectiveness she knew and the affection that he'd felt towards her. The chimpanzees still looked at them and then the youngest one lifted a hairy arm and pointed with his finger

Straight at where Caroline stood.

"They saw us…"

Caroline narrowed her eyes.

"I'm not so sure…let's just remain still and see what happens."

Burke's muscles tensed, she could feel that but then he had been a man who'd seen combat in ways much different than she had. The chimpanzees began to approach where they hid and as Caroline watched, she saw their individual faces. She looked at Burke and back at them, and then she made a decision.

She stepped slowly out of the trees to stand in front of them.


	30. Chapter 30

Caroline didn't know what to expect when she revealed herself to the chimpanzees. She knew to do so meant taking risks, including those she hadn't faced in her earlier field work…back when chimpanzees were just that and not becoming like humans. She had always enjoyed interacting with the animals she observed and studied…even back in Africa when she'd been doing her thesis after getting her veterinary degree. Sometimes she even preferred them to people. She'd gotten so focused in her work that she had eschewed much of a social life.

That had changed when she met Will just like she sensed it had changed for him. They were two people who were passionate about their work who made sense to each other even if they might not to others. But he had taken his passion about his work places she couldn't go even as she tried to understand. Not to judge but just to understand.

The chimpanzees didn't react at first, they just stared at her where they stood about 10 feet away and she knew not to approach or even look at them in a challenging way. Not as long as there was an adult male protecting his family. She knew Burke stood not far behind her still hidden but she also knew she'd be okay. Not sure how she did but she trusted it.

Damn her signing hadn't been as good as Will's but she could pass but she waited to see if they'd communicate first.

It was the female who made the first move and she signed, hi you here.

She furrowed her brow and then she understood and signed hi back and yes she was here. She wondered if they knew she'd been here regular watching them. She saw one of the younger ones close to the mother and the male watching her closely. Not going to challenge him at all, she reminded herself. She stood poised on the balls of her feet but she felt herself relax a little bit. The female looked at the others and signed, you alone?

Caroline bit her lip and didn't know how to answer that and she shook her head. The female looked past her and she knew she sensed Burke there but she didn't sign anything more.

"I…Shiloh…"

Caroline smiled and signed her own name. The chimpanzees appeared to process it then the female reached out to touch her hair, pushing a loose strand from her bun away from her face. Caroline stood still, not moving at all.

She knew Burke watched carefully as well, ready to act but she just relaxed knowing that the chimpanzees were simply getting information about her. The female signed back to the male and he seemed to settle down a little. She hoped Burke did as well, realize that she could take care of herself as she'd been doing this during her career. Yes, the rules had changed but she'd change with them.

"He Daniel…."

Caroline looked over at the impressive looking male, who reminded her a bit of Caesar. She'd found herself thinking of him more lately hard to separate him from her memories of Will because he'd been tied up so intricately in them. But Caesar had no doubt been there during Will's final moments and hopefully they had reached some kind of understanding…she knew how important it had been to Will for his surrogate son to forgive him for what he had done.

Hopefully Will had died knowing that, it would give her some comfort, she thought stroking her abdomen. She'd done it absently as she often did when thinking about Will. But Shiloh had noticed, and reached her hand towards her. Caroline looked up at her and then the female chimpanzee made the sign for baby.

Startled, Caroline just nodded. She didn't know how Shiloh had guessed but then the chimpanzee pointed towards her mate and then she saw her sign, where.

Caroline's eyes stung at that and her own hands signed, dead. Shiloh's eyes changed and she looked almost sad for a moment, the intelligence clearly lighting up her eyes. Caroline smiled at her and pointed to the smallest chimpanzee and signed, baby yours?

Shiloh sighed back yes, baby.

And just like that a relationship was born.

Caesar faced off with Kobas after the larger chimpanzee had returned from the zoo. Maurice had reported that he had wanted a place on the research committee and they had told him his least favorite word, no.

For Caesar and most of the apes who had been with him, that word had sparked a revolution but for Kobas who had been told that word in the lab so many times, it just reminded him of his oppression in captivity. He stood looming demanding to be on the research committee and Caesar just sighed and signed back, no that his strength was needed in other areas.

Kobas shook his head and signed about the scouting trip and Caesar said, not yet. But he knew the ape had been restless, he had seen it that day when he'd attacked Will and nearly mauled him in the forest before Caesar had intervened even though he had been still furious with Will at the time over Cornelia. But he had done it as much to maintain tight hold over his fledgling army as to protect his surrogate father.

Though in a matter of minutes, he and Will had had bridged the chasm between them, just before…Caesar closed his eyes at the memory of just how ugly humanity could be and how it no longer deserved a place at any attempts to broker power in the new world. After all, how many humans were left after the plague had swept up on the heels of the ape revolution and wiped them out?

He saw all the bodies in San Francisco and had smelled the stench of burning flesh in the air even though by the time he and his squad reentered the city, it had gone deathly quiet.

Kobas had led the killing of the armed squad in the forest but Caesar had let him do it, and not much had been left within a matter of minutes, leaving the forest quiet once again.

Maurice sidled up to the two chimpanzees facing off against each other and just patiently waited, pretty used to it. Caesar turned away from Kobas to look over at him, his eyebrow ridges raised.

What, they asked.

Maurice signed that the other team members had vetoed Kobas inclusion and at that, the other chimpanzee grunted and stood up even taller. Caesar watched him carefully before responding to Maurice with a nod. Before Kobas could fire off more signs of objection, Caesar looked at him and signed about the scouting trip, how much he'd need his assistance.

He didn't say that he only included him to keep him from developing an insurgency in Seattle after he left. But Kobas glared at him, his scarred face tense and then he nodded.

"I lead…."

Caesar shook his head.

"No…me you assist."

Kobas glowered again but then his face went expressionless and Caesar knew what he was doing but he just looked at him. And he reminded himself again, that he had the more difficult parts of society building ahead of him even with most of humanity dead or dying. Strife could divide up the apes and he had to stop it in its tracks way before it became destructive. He knew Kara would help him greatly with that, with her high intellect and superior communication skills that her species brought to them.

He would need all of them, especially if he couldn't even keep Kobas in check for long. You'd think that all that was to be distrusted lay with the humans who had exploited and enslaved his kind but even among the apes…maybe it was similar to the humans. Some could be trusted, some have to be watched.

He'd known nice humans, his own family while he'd been growing up. Charles, Caroline and Will, but even what they offered to him hadn't been enough. He needed to be with others like him to feel whole and it had taken Will a long time to understand that…Caroline had been more of an ally in that effort. She tried to tell Will, he knew but the scientist had to find out for himself that Caesar had more in store for him in his destiny than living in a cramped attic in a suburban house. But he had felt he had to catch up so much in learning to be an ape…when he'd spent most of his life believing Will was his real father and he…if not human, not ape either. After all, his own kind had rejected him at first and it had been Caroline who had recommended his transfer to the house where Maurice and the orangutans lived when she'd been volunteering there.

But he'd seen so much cruelty through Landon and Dodge at the sanctuary too which had merely fueled the embers already waiting inside him to be lit. But now with the fires out, he had to rebuild a new world for his kind from the ashes and it would be more complicated than he anticipated.

Maurice and he watched Kobas finally skulk off to do whatever he did when they weren't watching.

Knowing he'd have more of a chance to keep an eye on him during the scouting trip.

Landon looked through the journals that had been left behind by Will at the laboratory about his work with chimpanzees. Beginning back to Bright Eyes the female ape who had been given a dose of 112 as a test subject and then had gone berserk, needing to be euthanized according to the notes… But Jacobs had mentioned that the chimpanzee had been shot at point blank range in front of potential investors in 112. Only later, much later for Jacobs, had it turned out that she hadn't been experiencing nasty side effects from the agent but had been protecting a newborn baby.

Caesar as it turned out.

But he hadn't been raised in the lab…and the ape that came to Jacobs' mind had been Kobas who had only too eagerly accepted a dose of the newly improved and more deadly 113 almost as if he knew what it'd give him. Like accepting the apple in the Garden of Eden…but the price would be paid by humanity. Landon thought that highly unjust and would work the rest of his miserable life to find the way to make the apes pay beginning with Caesar for the death of his son. He had no time to mourn Dodge before everyone died around him….except the scientists here who had messed up the world for everyone else and given it to the apes on a platter.

He didn't trust any of them least of all Jacobs who seemed to be in charge here but he needed them. They needed each other before they were totally outnumbered by those who turned the tables on them.

Maybe the group of harried scientists now taking photos of what was 113 would find something to exploit to create an agent that would wipe out the apes before they could spread their disease across what rightfully belonged to humans.

Before he drew his last breath and joined his son with the millions perhaps billions of dead, he would make sure he took out the leader of this insane revolution himself.

Caesar.


	31. Chapter 31

She remembered so keenly the day he had told her the truth about Caesar. Every detail of their conversation etched in her mind beginning with his confession to her.

That Caesar hadn't been a product of natural evolution but the type of genetic manipulation that took place inside a laboratory. She had harbored suspicions that something was different about the chimpanzee she had helped raise with Will but had just believed that Caesar been an especially intelligent individual of his species that had benefitted from being reared in a household like a child.

Similar to others in his species that had enjoyed similar advantages to nurture their native intelligence to what seemed to almost surpass the others in their class…yet every chimpanzee held that same potential in similar circumstances. But Caesar had been much more than even that, his command over language for example she had long marveled at along with his rapport with Will, the man who had raised him from infancy. Her own examinations of him from the perspective of a simian vet hadn't discovered anything that would explain that.

But during one quiet moment between them, she had broached the subject again and finally he had told her the truth.

Not one she'd been prepared to hear as it turned out. She had really tried to listen to what he was saying but once she had learned of his genetic manipulation of Caesar's mother, she had felt that morally, Will had crossed boundaries between two species never meant to be crossed.

"Some things were never mean to be changed," she had told him with all the compassion she could muster to counter her disapproval. But try as she could to explain her point of view, he just couldn't see it and she knew why. All he could see was how much he had wanted to spare his father the fate of the disease that had robbed of his mind and soul even before it stole his life while he slept.

Will hadn't said much at the funeral except afterward while they cuddled on the living room couch of the house that had raised him. He had said that he felt he'd failed his family because he hadn't found the cure.

So he went back to the laboratory and that's when trials were resumed, this time on the much more amped up 113.

She closed her eyes as she remembered that, after spending most of the evening reflecting on her conversations with the family of chimpanzees and listening to Burke express his concerns about interacting with them in the face of the war between the two species.

Now she was the one being told it was wrong and it irritated her. She understood Burke's point but it felt like what she needed to do.

What Will would have done if…

She sighed, getting up to get some water, running smack into Burke. He caught her in his arms and she slid into his embrace without intending it.

"So what you still doing up?"

She pulled away and looked at him.

"Getting some water…"

"You need your rest," he said, "You had a long day."

"So did you and you're up?"

He scratched the back of his neck.

"Yeah but I'm not…"

"Pregnant….It's not like being sick."

"I know that but you still need your rest," he said, "and you won't get it otherwise."

She sighed.

"The whole world's changed Burke….none of us have much time to rest…especially if we're it as far as humans go."

They walked into the kitchen and he helped get her some water. Getting the wells back online had made life a little easier but they still had a lot to do.

"There's got to be more of us out there if there's a group of us here."

That sounded logical to her but they'd seen so many dead and dying already more than anyone could ever imagine possible. Bodies stacked on top of bodies waiting to be burned because there was no place left to bury them quickly. Bodies decomposing inside of churches and community centers were some had gone for some final comfort.

"You need to be careful with those apes."

She sipped her water, lukewarm but it still felt good.

"I am being careful," she said, "I'm an expert in this area."

His brows rose.

"Oh you dealt with highly intelligent because mankind got too arrogant style apes in your years in the field?"

She flashed him an irritated look.

"No…but I know what they're like from my experience with Caesar."

"Imagine hundreds of thousands of apes just like him," Burke said, as they both sat in the living area.

"I know…but they're cut off from him and the rest of his army…"

"They'll find their way to him soon enough just like they all will soon enough."

She knew that the instinctual drive would be for them to regroup even as their intelligence directed what actions they'd take to do that. And with the populations of humans dwindling because of the deadly virus, that would become easier to accomplish, faster. She had no idea how many people were immune like her and Burke but there couldn't be that many.

"We have to do that too," he said, "but it's harder right now because we're still struggling to make it work here."

"I know…but with Ruth and Glen and the others, we'll get there and then we can make a longer scale plan to survive."

She kept her voice calmer than she felt most times because to panic would get them nowhere but extinction. She focused on the day to day work in part because she didn't have to think about the past that had been destroyed and the uncertainty of the future for her unborn child.

Sometimes she still saw Will in her dreams and sometimes she talked to him and he seemed to listen but when she woke up, the reality of the new world returned in a flash to paint a stark contrast to what used to be.

And during those times, she felt more alone than ever.

Caesar packed up his backpack that he would be carrying on his quest which would be departing in a month or so. He had started preparing because the anticipation of leaving Seattle grew with each passing day and he couldn't wait.

But he had so many responsibilities to address here first. Armando and Maurice would remain behind to watch over the operations in their first main stronghold. Joining him would be Alisa, Kara and of course Kobas mostly so he could keep an eye on him. He knew that he couldn't trust him to turn his back on him for a moment, and hopefully Kara would help him there.

The weather had started to cool a bit at night so he and Alisa had moved indoors and she had enjoyed decorating a cottage with plants that she had picked up in a nursery. She and several other apes had been busy studying agriculture mostly based on picture books in the library so they could grow their own food. They had to learn to be self-sufficient to survive in their new home.

"I flower like…"

She had signed that when she started bringing home different species of flora in shiny colors matching the rainbow. He had just nodded wanting her to be happy. She'd been nervous about the scouting trip but wanted to go with him. She occasionally broached t he issue of creating offspring with him but hadn't lately. But she had developed a kind of nesting behavior that made him wonder. Not that each day gave him much time to do that as he had been up with the dawn to address some crisis or situation that sprung up as part and parcel of building the new social order.

He had some quiet times and Kara had said that he needed to hold onto those in order to deal with the chaotic moments that surrounded them. She would remind him of that even when he didn't want it. That even with a world to build, he had to make time for himself, such was the Bonobo way she said. And Caesar noticed how calm and harmonious she and her band had shown themselves to be.

He thought about Will too during some of the quiet moments…the promise he'd made as he watched his life slipped away…and the necklace in the drawer. Maybe when he went on his survey trip, he could do as he promised and find her. She hadn't been at the house when he looked, he had just seen her for those few moments when she'd been inside that police car waiting for Will to return.

Kara walked up to him and brushed his brow with her fingers as she was prone to be while he remained still. The bonoboes were very touchy feely and it'd taken him some time to get used to it. Alisa didn't seem to like Kara's friendliness all that much, he noticed but she hadn't said anything to him about it.

Looking out at a group of apes escorting some human slaves down the street, he decided to return to packing.

"You go now?"

He shook his head at Kara.

"Prepare first…go ready…"

She looked at him as if she understood and went to sample some of the fruit that Alisa had left in a bowl.

"She want baby have soon…"

Caesar looked at Kara a bit puzzled and she signed in the direction where Alisa spent her time when inside their new digs. Kara just stared at him while he digested what she signed.

"You know how?"

She shrugged.

"Ask her…find true."

And then she left him alone. He watched her go, knowing that her species likely outshone the others on the intelligence scale and a few others as well. He did as she advised and went to find Alisa.

Landon pounded the computer to oblivion finding it made him feel better every moment he could imagine killing the apes that had stolen the life of his son. Starting with Caesar who had dealt the fatal blow…but he wanted to do that now, not later through some new brand of killer virus that for all he knew could merely dig a deeper grave for the remaining humans.

What if the newer version made the apes even smarter than now?

He chuckled harshly at the thought. But when he had offered that up to Jacobs, the man had just shook his head and said that no, this time they would get it right and tailor it to target the ape population. Maybe tie it in with some DNA carefully removed from a virus humans were already immune to, like a more common cold. He didn't know what Will and his team had injected into 113 that made it turn killer but they would find a way to avoid repeating that error, he assured Landon.

San Francisco had begun to lose its smell of death so Landon thought about venturing out there soon. He didn't want to spend the day watching these crazy crew of scientists trying to figure out a way to kill off a species when he just wanted to start with one of them.

He remembered what it had all looked like in the final chaotic days of life in the big city. Traffic jams hadn't lasted long because the virus killed people too fast for them to flee very far and schools and banks had shut down when people started dying in the hallways and lobbies. Supplies began to dwindle and people were too weak to fight over what was left.

Some rioting had started near the marina but he had just hunkered down in his ruined compound until it grew quiet again. Rodney, the guard who had been locked up in the cage by the apes had his pay docked because he hadn't saved Dodge but then Rodney had gotten sick and died off shortly after the virus spread through the city.

He kept a picture of Caesar on him which he took out at night, staring at the eyes that he knew had watched him carefully while Caesar had been caged in his facility. He had to stop himself from clenching it in his fist as he plotted the ape's demise. Where had Caesar gone, Landon wondered, knowing he no longer remained in San Francisco just like he knew that the ape had lost his former owners.

Although he didn't know how he'd carry it out, Landon spent hours plotting his act of revenge.


	32. Chapter 32

Several months later….

Caesar looked across the mountain range in front of him, noticing that it appeared as formidable as what he and the other apes had already crossed. They'd climb up steep switch backed trails and recover in the narrow valleys in between them. Always he kept his squad of apes together and always, he kept an eye on Kobas because he knew he could never trust him.

Kara helped him keep the squad together with her communication skills to keep them all on track, which proved to be even better than his own. When conflicts threaten to erupt into fights, she'd negotiate more peaceful interactions. The stress of the journey through the foreign terrain had already begun to take its toll. Variable weather including drenching rain during the day and the air would chill near freezing at night on the highest peaks. They hadn't seen what Caesar knew to be snow but that would only be a matter of time and they had brought some of that loathsome clothing to add to their own natural insulation to protect themselves from a climate they had never faced. Kobas refused to even handle the clothing assigned to him and Caesar knew he'd never wear it willingly, but if the larger chimpanzee wanted to freeze that was his choice. It'd be one less problem for Caesar to face because he'd never warmed to his rival. No matter how much he had tried in the interest of ape solidarity. Not when Kobas made it so clear how much he coveted Caesar's leadership position. But then Caesar knew that the other ape had been caught wild in some land far away with others of his kind and then forced into a cage where he became a number and an experiment subject. He had to learn to hone his intelligence into skills to manipulate those who held him captive in the interest of control and domination in the interest of scientific research.

So when Kara expressed her concerns about him, Caesar always qualified them with saying that their life situations had been so different, both so outside the norm of what their lives should have been that he did hold out a slim hope that the two would put aside their differences to build a new society where both of them fit much better than the one they'd left.

"We cross mountain sun rise?"

Caesar didn't know the answer, thinking that their progress had slowed once it had sunk in the difficulty of the conditions of travel. It had been hardest for Alisa who had been pregnant with their offspring. He looked after her but she had retreated to the small cluster of chimpanzees who came with them. Still wary of Kara and the time she spent with Caesar and keeping her distance from Kobas and a couple of other apes who spent time with him.

"I see…Mountains high more…"

Meaning that every mountain seemed to be higher than the one that preceded it and they seemed like they were in an endless line. They traveled during the days because it was warmest then and there was no reason to hide their movement as they scarcely encountered any form of life unless it was animal. Caesar sensed humans in some of the populated areas they had passed through that had appeared deserted but that they were few in number and very skittish.

They didn't see many other apes either. Sometimes he asked himself why he made this journey and about his ties with the present reality of apes dominating the planet intermixed with his past history being raised among humans. He thought of the woman who had joined Will in taking care of him. She tended to his injuries. Like she had that first day he had seen her. Caesar had seen that his surrogate father had appeared to like her so he had suggested that they eat dinner together. As their relationship developed and grew over time, he felt the distance between him and them, as well as for humans in general increase. His realization that he didn't quite fit in the dynamics between humans and that was when his alienation began. Because Will and the woman had been a couple and he'd been outside of that especially after Will's father died.

But when he found the apes, he felt more complete and his relationship with Cornelia and then Alisa enriched that further. Sadness and some anger still clouded his feelings when he thought about Cornelia but Alisa had helped that to fade as had his last conversation with Will before the armed men arrived.

Alisa walked up to him after Kara had moved back to check on the progress of the other apes and signed to him that it was time to eat soon. He knew that she had been hungrier later and believed that the pregnancy had to do with that. But even as he watched her sign, he kept an eye on Kobas. He saw him with two other apes, the two that had been with him when he'd gone on a rampage in one abandoned town…still angry at what the humans had done with him and the others at the laboratory where Will had worked. If there had been humans…he would have killed them unless Caesar stopped him and he didn't know where he'd find that will not after what happened in the forest.

Not after he had stood by Cornelia's still body on the bridge and looked at the man he'd once considered his father.

He heard some hollering and hooting and looked up to see that some of the gorillas had found what looked like their next meal. They had been foraging for food in the mountains and hadn't found much to their liking. He looked at Alisa and they both ambled over to where the gorillas had found a trove of food in the wilderness.

Caroline sat with Burke in a meeting held involving both encampments. She listened as Carlton and his crew tried to outline the reasons why they needed to exterminate the family of chimpanzees that she had befriended. She and Burke had headed to see Ruth and Glen to engage in trading of goods and for her to be examined by Glen to check on her pregnancy. She definitely had to upgrade her wardrobe to one that accommodated her developing girth.

The baby would be fine, she knew it because she'd felt it move one day when she'd been watching the chimpanzees. It felt like a quickening inside her at first, a flutter like bird's wings almost easy to miss if she hadn't known it for a sign that the life she had created in the old world with Will hadn't been thriving. Over time, the fluttering became kicking and she would rub her belly at night when it was most active. When Burke had walked in once while she stood in the kitchen, her hand on her abdomen just focused on how it felt, he had known what was happening. Before she knew it, she had taken his callused hand and placed it near her own and his eyes had widened…because after all she did have a soccer player inside her. But she'd seen something that looked like sadness intermixed with his sense of wonder and his gradual retreat. She knew that her pregnancy as it became more visible sparked something inside of him, most likely from the past.

The one that they sometime tried to pretend didn't exist just to get through the more difficult days. But for her the baby made that impossible, for when she felt him or her kick, she remembered that there had been a time when it had been created.

"I think they should all be terminated…"

She looked up to see Carlton standing in front of the group, his face rigid with his anger. Some heads began nodding including Denny whose attitude towards the chimpanzees hadn't mellowed at all.

"Yes kill them," he said, "and burn their campsite to get rid of every trace of them."

Caroline knew the direction this mentality would go. They were losing their humanity in their struggle to survive, to keep from being stamped out of existence. Their battle to regain dominance already lost. She looked over at Ruth who just shook her head at her, clearly not sure what to say at this point. So Caroline stood up instead, one hand resting on her abdomen.

"I think that acting violently towards a family of apes that hasn't shown any sign of hostility is just barbaric."

Carlton and his crew glared at her and she remembered the physical confrontations they'd already had over this issue. The times she had stopped them from going out and harming the chimpanzees….even Burke not understanding her commitment. The only person who would get it, he wasn't around but she knew Will would understand. She had warned him time and time again as Caesar grew from toddler ape to adolescent ape that he would likely turn unpredictable and possibly violent. But he had always refused to believe it, until he'd seen it for himself.

"Shut up…I've heard enough of your bullshit," Denny said, "I'm with Carlton here…let's get some guns and torches and just get it done…before they come and get us while we sleep."

Caroline just wanted to smack him. There'd been no signs of any other apes approaching the chimpanzee family, and it was possible they would remain isolated. Besides, if they were harmed, that would increase the odds that other apes would feel threatened enough to attack the human encampments and right now…they wouldn't survive the onslaught if that happened.

"We need to be careful."

Denny shook his head.

"We need to kill them," he said, "Just like those scientists who started all this should have been hung for treason…"

Ruth stuck up her hand.

"No one committed treason," she said, "No one deliberately set forth to make this all happen."

Denny snarled.

"Maybe not but we're all dead just the same or we're enslaved by these savage apes," he said, "I for one would rather be dead…but before that I think I'll take as many of them with me as I can."

Caroline just shook her head wondering about the world that would greet her baby's birth in several months. Most of humanity dead and the remaining survivors engaging in continual violence…there had to be something out there better, more hopeful than the human race resorting to more primitive behaviors that arose from the chaos resulting from a collapsed civilization. Everything they had relied on to be the dominate species on the planet had been stripped away.

Burke stood up as he had other times and the room grew mostly quiet though there were some catcalls.

"She's right….you attack those apes, you put every man, woman and child at risk in this area," he said, "and we're not strong enough to fight them. We're barely able to keep ourselves going…most of us were weakened by that virus that killed everyone else."

Caroline knew that its infection had robbed many people of their cognitive sharpness and their memory skills. Only she, Burke and a few others had been spared that.

"You ready to risk everyone's life to get revenge Carlton?"

The other man just stared at him his fists clenched.

"A few months ago, I just commuted to the office every day," he said, "Maybe had to wait in line to get in a restaurant but now…"

No need for Carlton to finish his statement, that everything had changed. She'd been sharing a house with Will trying to adjust to not being close to Caesar. He had been fighting with Jacobs where he worked as well. It hadn't been an easy time for them then but looking back now…her heart still ached for what she lost.

For what everyone in that room had lost…but killing a family of chimpanzees to try to even the score wasn't going to make up for that. But as time passed instead of increasing stability in their new social order in the mountains, emotions continued to turn rawer and more basal impulses often replaced reason. Take away the underpinnings of civilized order from mankind and it regressed into a more primitive state while the apes intellect continued to grow contributing to more stability in their own structure…

Questions that might take more than one generation to answer but Caroline feared for the future her child would inhabit. But what could be done to change it?


	33. Chapter 33

Landon looked into the microscope, squinting his eyes to see what would be invisible outside of it. He could make out the strand of material that was hooked on the end but he didn't understand its meaning. He turned to look at the scientist, Bryan who had shown it to him.

"What's all this mean?"

Bryan adjusted his cracked eye glasses and looked at Landon as if he were not as smart.

"It's the virus…113."

Landon furrowed his brows, knowing enough to know what that virus had done when it had been let loose on the world. It had a dual effect that had spiraled outward like the shockwaves of an explosion. It had made apes more intelligent by altering their brain matter and it had proved to be fatal to humans in its path.

"So what good is it to us now," Landon said, "It killed most of us and made them smarter."

Jacobs walked up to him and nodded.

"And you know that it would do both," Landon said, "when you created it and when it got out."

Jacobs sighed because he couldn't deny that, because when the first handful of people had died from their own laboratory after a mysterious accident, he had known immediately the cause. But Will too had been warned that it was volatile and might mutate in any of a thousand different directions and some of those pathways could lead to fatality in humans.

Will had been so driven to find the cure, to create the drug that would bring his father back to him even when the man had died in his sleep after refusing the more virulent serum. He had found that much out from reading Will's notes he'd left behind in his office.

"You were going to make money off of it weren't you?"

He picked up the accusatory tone in Landon's voice and it made him bristle. Even though it was true that they'd hoped that the drug would pay for itself and then some, he had really wanted to help people in need of it. At least that's what he told himself, even now that there was really no one left to listen. Landon turned to the microscope again and his eyes picked up something on the viral strand.

"What's those bumps on it…along side it?"

Jacobs looked at Bryan and then he took a deep breath.

"That's what we hope will kill the apes."

Landon's eyes widened and he leaned closer to them.

"How…how will this do that," he said, "They've taken over the world and they're butchering us even right now."

Truthfully, none of them knew what the apes had been doing once they left San Francisco. Occasionally their radio picked up some transmissions from elsewhere but they were mostly about human beings foraging through destruction and waste trying to find the means to survive. Some places had been burned in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus through its dead but other towns had merely been emptied of their populations, their buildings and streets littered with bodies with most of their rotting finished.

"Those bumps," Bryan continued, "will be filled with genetic material that will target the apes' immune cranial areas and will destroy them."

Landon's mouth curled into a smile.

"Really…will it be painful?"

Because he knew it had been painful for his son to be electrocuted by Caesar and for the millions perhaps billions to die of the contagion. He had seen it himself, men and women writhing on the ground in pain, their senses wakened to the level that any input was excruciatingly painful. Death had proven to be a relief to most of those who contracted it.

Jacobs looked at him gravely and nodded.

"Not that it's our intent…"

Landon spat on the ground.

"Bull shit…I want them to feel agony and pain, to beg us for their lives…and then to crush them."

Jacobs marveled at the hatred in the man's voice. He hated what the apes had done to humanity too but a part of him marveled at it because they hadn't done it without the serum. If only what had happened to the primates had been properly channeled and controlled, think of what might have been accomplished.

If they had kept to working with the first agent, 112 and not even created 113. But Will had been so driven to resume doing ape trials with an even more powerful version and somehow the apes had gotten access to that serum.

Jacobs knew that others like Kobas had been treated with it.

"So when are you going to get them with this new virus?"

Jacobs looked at Bryan again and sighed.

"We'll need to make sure it's not dangerous to us."

Landon narrowed his eyes.

"How do you intend to do that?"

Jacobs paused.

"We'll need some test subjects…"

Caesar had signed to Kobas to help the other apes gather wood in the forest but he had just shrugged him off to join several other chimpanzees. Frustration filled Caesar as he realized that the other ape had been challenging his authority since they left on the scouting trip.

Kara watched him as he went off to challenge him. There had already been some close calls and Caesar knew the other apes were watching him closely to see how he handled Kobas and watching them both to see who would emerge strongest in their power struggle.

The two apes exchanged hard looks at one another as the other apes looked on and finally Kobas looked up at a tree and started to climb it. Caesar at first thought he was being defiant but then he noticed the branches dropping down at his feet. Two other apes gathered them up to start the fire.

Caesar had signed to the apes to start fires during the colder nights at temperatures most of them hadn't experienced before they came here. They also used it to cook small mammals that they caught and that the chimpanzees liked to eat. They had established a small council with representatives of every species and a consensus form of decision making. Kobas hadn't been a part of this council but sat on its sidelines clearly advising several of the other members even outside the meetings.

He didn't know exactly where they were heading and what direction they would ultimately take. The other apes wanted to travel where it would be warmer than it was up north but he felt he was heading in the right direction.

At night while some of them served as sentries in the trees, they would sleep closely together to keep warm as the fires cooled. Not that there was much to look out for anymore.

He remembered the occasions when Will would take him camping overnight not far away from the home they shared. They'd sleep out beneath the stars and Caesar would take the impressive view in of a dark sky chock filled with them as far as could be seen. The forest would make noises around them but Caesar never felt afraid He trusted that Will would take care of him.

But now Caesar had to take care of himself and his squad of apes that had come with him on this journey. Sometimes he felt as if the future of the new society of his own kind was heavy on his shoulders. He'd lay awake at nights while they rested and slept pulling out the locket that Will had given him in those last final moments, photos of his human family. The one that he'd never been able to renounce even as the apes had turned their backs on any relationship with their former masters that didn't involve turning the tables on them and having them become the slaves…

Alisa snuggled up with him, their baby growing inside of her as he examined that part of his past and what he'd promised to do with its future.

Now sleep, she would sign to him gently as she drifted off sometimes in the nest they built in a tree high above the ground. But when he closed his eyes, the memories would return of the earliest days when his two worlds collided.

Caroline spent much of her time with Shiloh and Daniel where they lived in a different forest miles away. Burke continued to watch over her, waiting for that moment when she might be endangered by the arrival of other apes. But it hadn't happened and after seeing how the fervor had grown in the two encampments over the family of chimpanzees and the threat they symbolized, he wondered what might be the more dangerous species. After all, her pregnancy had grown more visible to everyone and yet they still hassled her about what she had been doing, often in menacing ways. But while she took care to look after herself, she didn't appear afraid of Carlton, Denny or any of the others.

Watching her interact with them Burke knew why she did it. Whether she'd admit it or not, it was her way of feeling close to the man who had fathered her baby. The scientist that had started this whole mess with what had been called the cure…but for what? She hadn't told him much more about him but he knew that the two of them had been integral in the life of the ape who had led the revolution on the Golden Gate Bridge that had raised much controversy across the country. Even the president of the United States had called a press conference in his oval office discussing what had happened on the other side of the country.

Not much had happened really; the apes had escaped and had clashed with police on the bridge before heading off to Muir Woods where they later mauled to death a small squad of armored police. Burke guessed that the military had been very close to sending in a much stronger offensive in the forest to take them all out but for the plague which had whipped itself into a frenzy so damn quickly. In a matter of days, that part of the country and pockets elsewhere had begun to be overwhelmed with plague cases.

She looked over where he stood and smiled.

"The juvenile is showing signs of more abstract thought," she said, like the primatologist she had been in the old world.

Burke had seen the evidence of technology they had brought back including a ham radio. But the apes still communicated through visual means, sign language though rumors had spread that some of them, a very small number could speak. How couldn't that at least be possible based on everything they'd shown themselves able to do so far including take over the world? She walked back over to them, her hand resting on her abdomen. He remembered the other night when she looked up and told him that the baby had moved, it had kicked her and she invited him to come see, and when he walked over there, she took his hand in her own and placed it there, and he felt it too.

His eyes had widened with wonder but also sadness because it had been a reminder….but how could she know that? Everyone had their own losses to bear in the face of what had happened.

"You're wondering what Will was thinking when he raised Caesar from a baby…"

Not a question, but an observation and she looked at him startled.

"I didn't know him then," she said, "but he had already taught him so much by the time we met."

Burke sighed.

"He didn't know what he was dealing with…."

Caroline looked at him then.

"No he didn't…but Caesar's identity crisis came later."

It had been when she'd entered into the lives of Will and Caesar that the apes had begun to question his own identity and place in the world. He had believed that Will had been his father, and he his son. But when he grew older, and his moods had been influenced by what drove adult male chimpanzees, the dynamic had changed and it became harder to control Caesar….it had been like she had told Will that some things weren't meant to be controlled.

It had taken him longer to understand that and that Caesar had his own destiny. She sighed next to Burke as they both watched the chimpanzees, not noticing that they'd been followed into the woods that day by a group of men out to destroy them.

Until they heard the branches crackle on the ground behind them….


	34. Chapter 34

"You love me?"

Caesar looked up at Alisa whose eyes remained fixed on his own, the question clearly on her face matching the shapes and movement formed by her hands. She had asked him before and he hadn't known what to say back. How to tell her that he didn't know that kind of love only that when he thought about it, he remembered Cornelia.

His mind revisited those moments in the lab. The time when he had first met her, a smaller version of himself but her eyes were filled with quiet intelligence that he suspected didn't just come from the 113 virus that he had stolen from Will's house. She had been so affectionate from the light of her eyes when she saw him to the way she had leaned against him when he had embraced her. At that moment, he had known what Will had shared with Caroline that had separated him from Caesar who had watched the affection that they shared and felt apart from it. He had seen it when the two had first met when Will had taken him to treat his injuries from the bad neighbor and something had spurred inside of him to sign to Will to ask her out to dinner.

What he had felt for Cornelia had shaken him because it had been so new and yet so wonderful at the same time. So part of the natural order of things as he had tried to understand them and yet it had shaken his norm. He had watched from his window in the attic watching the little girl grow up next door and start leaving the house to go inside cars that pulled up in front of the house, looking happy. Once, he had seen her embrace a young man and kiss him as he had dropped her off later that night. He had asked Will about that but the scientist had been so preoccupied then, wondering if he should resume trials for the newer virus. Caesar had heard him on the phone arguing with Jacobs at the laboratory about it.

Caesar knew that Will had somehow won that argument. But when he and the other apes were trying to find the way to free themselves and he had to sort out these new feelings about Cornelia. But as he remembered her months later, other visions flashed in front of him of her growing weaker as they scrambled across the city on their way to the Golden Gate Bridge, of her falling behind the pack and finally of her dying on the bridge, foaming at the mouth.

That's when the harshest truth he had ever known had hit him suddenly and as he looked at Will on the bridge, he almost hated him.

Now he looked into Alisa's eyes and didn't know what to sign. He cared about her deeply, shared a home with her and soon, an offspring but the question about love, he couldn't answer. So he just reached out and stroked her face as he'd seen Will do with Caroline and his eyes met hers. That would have to be enough of an answer. She leaned against him a moment and then pulled away again leaving him.

Kara and her kind seemed to exchange affection so much more freely than the other apes. Caesar watched them hug and touch each other almost as a substitution for sign language. Kobas watched them too from his perch and just hooted scornfully. He had been quieter in more recent days which made Caesar trust him all the less.

They had found a trove of food and had feasted on that, packing up what could be carried on their journey and had made progress though the nights had grown colder and Caesar wondered if he'd see snow.

Alisa returned and she signed to him that she felt cold so he went to join her in a nest he'd create and insulated so that and their combined body heat would keep them warm through the night. He wondered what it'd be like back in Seattle and whether it was wise to go on this journey but he knew he had to go.

He thought of Will often and wondered what the human who had raised him would think of what he'd become. He'd died saving him from his own kind who sought to execute him and the other apes. And after all, it had been mankind that had doomed itself, the apes hadn't done anything but sit and watch from the protection of the redwoods until the time was right. But Will had asked him in his final moments of life to do just one thing and Caesar would keep his promise.

Kara came up to him on his way to join Alisa and he looked at her inquisitively.

"Night cold…you warm?"

He signed back that he was fine.

"You cold… join us."

He looked at her then and wondered what she meant by that. Did her…no it couldn't mean that, it was a kind gesture that was all. He knew that the Bonoboes viewed interactions in ways much different than their closest relatives, chimpanzees. But Alisa just looked at them and walked away.

Caroline sat in the crowded room where representatives from both encampments had met since the incident that happened with the chimpanzee family. She and Burke had been observing them and Carlton and several others had walked in on them after apparently following them in stealth. They had weapons with them and wanted to ambush the chimpanzees right there and it had taken Burke pulling a gun on them to keep them back. She knew that it had taken a lot for him to do that because she realized that a part of him agreed that the apes posed a threat to the human encampments as long as they had settled close by.

But Burke also knew that to commit violence against them might bring more apes to come and launch an offense against the humans who would lose, many would be killed or enslaved by the apes. Carlton had called for a meeting and the other encampment had been asked to send representatives. Denny had shown up along with Ruth and Glenn and they had been arguing the past hour about what steps to take next. Denny, Carlton and a few others advocated slaughter while Caroline and Ruth countered that with the argument to leave them alone. That the apes had more in common with them than they were different and Burke reminded them of the dangers of risking a full scale battle with apes while the humans were still at their weakest.

"We've got too much to lose here if more apes come to avenge their deaths," he said, "We couldn't even launch a defense."

Carlton shook his head.

"There's enough of us…we've got some weapons."

"It's not enough," Burke said firmly, "We'd be out numbered and possibly at this point outgunned."

Carlton looked over at Denny who just sneered back.

"We've got to make our stand that this is our land," he said, "The apes have already taken enough of what's ours."

Burke sighed.

"The plague did most of that and that came from us."

Carlton shrugged.

"One bastard scientist isn't exactly all of us," he said, "and if he showed up here, I'd hang him myself for his crimes."

Caroline watched the argument stroking her abdomen, feeling the baby move as it often did these days. Her final link to Will who was more than just that scientist…what he'd done had been intended to save lives not take them. But she knew that he'd underestimated the mutation skills of one virus and that one man had been exposed and sent home to die but not before infecting other people. That began the chain reaction of exposures that had greatly reduced the numbers of their species on the planet.

But Will had also argued against further testing when he found out and none of these people knew that.

"We need to think long and hard about anything we do," she said, "It could have consequences on the most vulnerable of us."

Denny folded his arms.

"How so…we can defeat them."

"If we do, they'll just send even more apes, more weapons," she said, "and then what? We have children with us."

"All the more reason to fight them," Carlton said, "They'll force our hand eventually if they spread outwards like locusts."

Caroline looked at Burke.

"We could leave the chimpanzees alone in peace," she said, "They don't mean us harm. They just want to settle here like we do."

"It wasn't our choice to be here," Carlton countered, "They took everything else away from us already."

Denny nodded.

"I say we take it back."

Caroline sighed, wondering what Will would do or say if he were here. But she knew the answer; he'd fight to stop them from hurting the apes. After all, she understood that's what had cost him his own life because he'd never let anyone hurt Caesar. She had kissed him that last time saying goodbye, sensing that he might never return especially when she'd seen an armed squad follow him and she couldn't stop them.

"No, we can't do that," she said, "It's wrong and it's suicidal anyway."

Burke nodded.

"She's right…I don't like having them here anymore than you do," he said, "but they haven't done us any harm and killing them will kill us at a time when we need to live."

"But…"

"No, we need to live not just for ourselves but our species," Burke said, "or we will go extinct if we don't start making the right choices."

Carlton gritted his teeth.

"We need to kill them."

"They'll be a time to fight back," Burke said, "but it's in the future not now…maybe not in our lifetimes either."

Caroline looked at the other men and knew they didn't like the sound of that, to leave it to another generation to go to battle against the new world order but Burke was right. She felt her abdomen again realizing that her child would be part of that generation and she had wanted so much better for him or her. A world that made sense where her most challenging decision would getting on a waiting list for preschool. A place where her child would know his or her father.

But wishing wasn't enough; the future wasn't going to promise anything but a fight for survival. Her baby would be part of that and from birth to death would know nothing but hardship and sacrifice, but maybe…by life's end, he or she would know freedom.

She had to fight for her child's life and that meant fighting for the chimpanzees right to live. But looking around at the other faces, she knew the battle had just begun.

Landon looked through the photos of the chimpanzees that had once been housed in the now wrecked buildings, where the cages now were empty. He didn't see Caesar but then Jacobs had told him that he hadn't been housed here but had been smuggled out as a baby by that damn bleeding heart scientist who had gotten the world into this mess. Who had cost him his son.

He had raised Dodge single handedly after his wife had died of some exotic disease picked up from an ape that had just arrived at the sanctuary. A chimpanzee his wife had doted on like a baby. After she'd given birth to Dodge, she hadn't been able to have any more children. But then she had gotten sick with some hemorrhagic type fever the doctor had called it. Actually it hadn't appeared much different than the plague that had been created in this laboratory.

Ever since burying his wife, Landon had never looked at his charges the same way again…and he made sure his son would never do that as well. Apes were to be caged and controlled not treated with affection. If you had a firm hand with them with authority rather than love, they couldn't kill you.

Landon looked at the photos of the new virus hoping that Jacobs and the scientists were right, that they had finally found a weapon to kill the apes.


	35. Chapter 35

Caesar looked out into the wide open span in front of them, stretching out as far as he could see. Barren, it appeared except for long strands of green grass turning golden and totally quiet except for the wind rustling through them. Kara came up to him.

"It's not forest."

He nodded, it was very much different than the forest which had stretched up into the mountains that they had trekked through to get this far. They had even encountered snow at the very tops but it melted quickly. Winter hadn't yet arrived and when they traveled back down to lower elevations, it soon became a memory.

"Dead…?"

Caesar knew that life existed ahead of them in the forms of apes waiting to find groups to join which would then join up with other groups until…a society would be fully born. One where his kind ruled and humans, they would have to be ruled over…they couldn't be trusted after all. No, judging by the world they had left behind, where their numbers quickly diminished, they must never be allowed to reign supreme again. On that, he and Kobas agreed, even though they remained at conflict on everything else. But lately, Kobas had been more helpful, doing chores without complaint and encouraging others to do that as well. Caesar still didn't trust him, knowing that he still watched and waited and with others in the darkness likely plotted.

It was a harsh world already where his own kind couldn't be trusted, not all of them but Kara had become good counsel to him because her intuition about the apes transcended even their enhanced intelligence. She helped him assign chores to the apes best matched to perform them and he marveled at the heightened work productivity he witnessed. Alisa however had grown more distant even as he knew she carried their offspring. She ate more food and still wanted to help with the food gathering. He worried about her but not too much because he knew that it would be fine for the developing offspring.

He had dreamed the previous night about Will and Caroline and the trips to the redwoods, the same ones that years later had harbored him and the other apes until the day arrived to go out and claim their world. They had even camped out there several times in a tent while Caesar had opted to make a nest in the lowest branch of a nearby tree. They would gather by the fire though and talk about his future when they thought he was sleeping. Not watching and listening.

"What about Caesar," Caroline said, "Where does he fit in this world because of what science has done?"

Will sighed, sticking another branch on the crackling fire.

"He's mine…I've raised him since he was a baby and he's always going to be my family…our family."

"I know…I love him too," she said, "It's just that he's older and I think he feels alone…because we have each other and he doesn't have…someone."

Will paused.

"You mean a mate?"

Caroline nodded.

"He'll want one soon…and what will happen to him then? He's different from all the other chimpanzees…and he's not human."

"I'll find a way to deal with that when it happens," Will said, "I'll figure out something."

"Will…that's not it works," she said, "It wasn't that way with us."

"True…but Caesar told me to ask you out," Will said, "I had always been more focused on my work."

"Me too…but I said yes didn't I because I thought you were cute," she said, "and I liked what you built with Caesar."

Even before she had known the full truth, Caesar imagined she'd had her suspicions but he had already sensed at that point that what she had told Will had already happened. She seemed to understand him in ways even better than Will.

"I just want him to be happy for who he is and for him to enjoy life and find companionship among his own kind."

"I know Caroline…I want that too."

Caesar listened and wondered what it was he was supposed to be missing though he sensed something but it had taken him time to figure it out on his own. Kara looked at him and signed if he wanted to start out across the vast plains and he nodded, gesturing for the others to follow him.

Caroline placed her hand on her abdomen as she often did these days and when she did, she remembered him. Wondering what it would be like if he'd survived and had been here with her this moment…or if the world hadn't fallen apart, what it'd be like to plan for a family together. They hadn't gotten married but they'd talked about it, they just had to deal with the situation involving Caesar before they could more fully settle into their lives. But fate had taken away all of their chances and had left her with a child to raise on her own in a world that had changed overnight.

Burke had been supportive of her and had watched over her. They'd gotten closer even though she didn't feel like she knew him anymore than when they first met. She could see him helping her raise her son or daughter and didn't know if that was right to think. But then again, neither had family still alive though she sensed that the plague hadn't taken his away from him but something else…

She still had several months to go until she gave birth somewhere and she'd been making regular visits with Glenn to check the progress of her pregnancy. So far everything had gone well though she constantly had to seek out new clothing especially now. And though she kept busy most of her waking hours, she still thought a lot about the baby.

Ruth had also been trying to figure out the presence of what appeared to be antibodies in her blood. But nothing had come up yet.

Sometimes she took some time to read the remainder of Will's journals but she still found it too difficult. They were from different periods of his life with Caesar, some in the earliest days and some later on. She had read about how Caesar had been smuggled out of the laboratory as a baby by Will and his assistant in a box and taken home where the baby chimpanzee had taken immediately to Charles. He had been ill and Will had taken him into the bathroom turning on the hot water in the shower to generate steam to help him recover.

He'd raised him like a baby just like he'd never be able to raise his own child. He'd written about what foods Caesar ate and which he didn't like and his first toys, first words or in his case signs. She hadn't been there when this had been going on and Will hadn't brought Caesar to receive medical help yet. But when she met them both, she had witnessed the close familial bond and had been drawn into it. And she had fallen in love with both of them.

"You ready to head on back?"

She looked up to see Burke already carrying his back. She traveled more lightly these days and Burke did most of the lifting. She nodded and said goodbye to Ruth and Glenn and left with him. He slipped his arm around her and she leaned towards him as they left.

She still loved Will but she felt as if she could move forward in the life that faced her now. She could do that with a guy like Burke who she felt great affection and respect towards even if it weren't love. Will would want that for her, she knew. He had been her choice but now all the choices had been taken away from her.

"You hungry…?"

She smiled at him good naturedly.

"When am I not these days," she said, "and it's certainly showing."

"You look great," Burke said, "I remember when…well you look good."

She caught the edge in his voice.

"You were going to tell me about your wife weren't you?"

He glanced at her and she knew she'd been right but he had reeled his recollection back inside of him as he often did. The past appeared to be a closed book for Burke, in ways different from herself and perhaps others.

He hesitated and she thought he might drop it or ask her to do that but then he sighed.

"She was pregnant just like you and we had a son…and then two years later a daughter."

"Sounds wonderful…"

He adjusted the pack on his back as they hit the rocky part of the trail.

"It was...we were a family until…"

She heard his breath come more difficultly.

"Burke…you lost them didn't you," she said, "before the plague."

The pause became even longer and she saw him look elsewhere.

"Yeah…I did…and talking about it's not going to bring them back."

She sighed.

"No it won't…but it doesn't mean you can't," she said, "I think about Will a lot about what we had together…what the future was supposed to be…You can't help thinking about those you lost. You can't turn that part of yourself off."

He looked at her then and he had this determined look in his eyes she was used to by then but now it seemed different.

"I can do that…it's a choice."

"Maybe…but I don't want to forget him," she said, "and when this baby's born, it's still a part of him even if he's gone. Maybe the only part of him left."

Burke appeared to digest that.

"It's different for you…I don't have those kind of reminders," he said, "My family's dead. Buried too."

"I'm sorry Burke," she said, "and if you ever want to talk about it, I'll listen…anytime."

He didn't say yes or no to her offer but kept walking, looking straight ahead and she knew that his feelings about his family were so raw despite his belief that they were a closed book.

But she didn't ask him about it as they continued to walk back to their encampment.

Dodge stood before him, the shock of blonde hair standing up and dressed in his work clothes.

"Dad…you've got to get some payback for what that dirty ape did to me," he said, "You can't let them win."

Landon couldn't believe his son was right in front of him, as if he hadn't been killed.

"Dodge…how…"

His son's teeth gnashed and his eyes hardened.

"You've got to wipe them all out before it's too late."

Landon sprung up in his cot in a deep sweat. So it had been just a dream and his son was still dead. But it had felt so vivid, almost as if he could reach out and touch him. He'd never really wanted his son most of his life, just kept him around because he'd been so good with the apes, so useful for keeping them in line.

Until they had taken in Caesar.

A scientist, he couldn't remember the names of all of them rushed in.

"Come quick…we've got a live subject for the virus…he's ready to test right now."

Excitement coursed through Landon's veins. The virus was still in its most rudimentary form but it was ready to be tested at least on apes. As per the usual protocol, apes were to be the first test subjects for any new viral agent and in this case, Landon couldn't argue against it. Not if it were a tool that could be used to destroy the apes.

He slapped on his shoes and headed off in a rush with the scientist, hoping that the tide had turned and soon they'd be able to push back against the apes to reclaim at least one corner of their planet.


	36. Chapter 36

Two months later….

Landon had been so sure he had been dreaming when his dead son had appeared before him telling him to avenge his murder. His life had been snuffed by that newer ape Caesar, the one who had come in wearing clothes and so uncertain of his new home. After all, as Will had told him, Caesar had never spent any time with other chimpanzees. Landon had just told the scientist that the ape would adjust in his new home and have plenty of companionship.

But Caesar had been much smarter than he or his son had realized and had somehow plotted behind the scenes to unite the apes even across species division and persuade them to rise up against first him and his son and then the rest of San Francisco. His son now appeared in his dreams at night, haunting him by telling him that he would never rest until Caesar and his army had been destroyed.

Landon didn't remember if he talked to his dead son but he would have told him that the scientists he had been holed up with in a decaying section of an abandoned city had been working on the virus. They had tested it but so far the live subject, an orangutan hadn't succumbed to it.

Hadn't even been infected by it so at least it hadn't made him smarter, into Einstein or something…thank god for small favors. But Jacobs told him that his team remained determined and that with each round of testing, perhaps they were getting closer. What was left was finding the particular key that would slip easily enough into the receptor in the right cells inside the apes own physiology. Then the mutated genetic material of the virus could start coding the affected cells to kill themselves in rapid succession, like the 113 virus had done with humans in the brain.

Landon tried to be patient but his son wasn't and sometimes he began seeing him in the daytime or so he thought, standing in the shadows mostly while he'd been alone. He looked remarkably normal for being dead.

Jacobs came in with his usual clipboard. The past two months had made him look even more haggard. He had been losing weight too, probably because there had been less food to eat since it was all going to go bad soon except for a few canned goods and nonperishables.

"Any closer to finding a way to kill those apes," Landon asked.

The former corporate president just stared at him.

"The latest round of tests was encouraging."

Landon snorted.

"They always are but so far that test ape still breathes and lives," he said, "and eats better than we do."

"We need to keep it alive for the tests…"

"But the point is to kill it," Landon said, "So when will that be?"

Jacobs paused.

"We still don't know but it's better than sitting around waiting for us all to die off."

Landon couldn't argue with that but he felt that was happening anyway…not that he cared as much about his own life after losing his son but he didn't want the apes to win.

Caesar looked out from where they had camped on the edge of the Great Plains into where the sun had begun to rise in the East. The apes had set up in a huddle due to the lack of trees to nest in and had spent most of the time trying to keep warm. Autumn had settled in and the weather had gotten even chillier including at night. They still hadn't found many signs of humans in the past two months except for a small group of them holed up in an abandoned town that had once been part of a farming community.

Only the crops had run amuck and then started to die off after bearing an abundant harvest because there had been no one around to tend to them. Everyone had either gotten sick and died or had wandered off in search of someplace else. Maybe whatever humans survived fled into hiding whenever they arrived, which led to Caesar thinking that their time of domination had definitely ended. But would his kind be able to smoothly ascend up the ladder to assume their position? Caesar looked around him at the slumbering apes save for the sentries they kept posted and didn't know how to answer that question. He remembered back to when he'd been growing up and he'd been spending much of his time home with Will's father while the scientist worked in the laboratory. Charles had talked to him and read to him from thick books about the histories of the different civilizations that had populated the earth, with each one ascending up the ranks often taking control through violence to only rule at the top for a short time before the decay began to sink in. Most societies were already dying in a sense before they were swallowed up and replaced by others who would experience the same cycle.

Not his society, he thought, no his would rule supreme the longest. Past his own lifetime into those of the offspring that Alisa carried inside of her and their offspring. Armani, an orangutan who had been one of the sentries came up to Caesar.

"I have seen no sign of him…."

Caesar frowned because Kobas had disappeared several nights earlier when he had been supposed to be on sentry duty and hadn't been seen since. On one hand he had been relieved feeling a huge load off his shoulders that the confrontation he feared soon wouldn't happen. But where had the chimpanzee gone, to try to find others of his kind to team up with and develop a counterrevolutionary force?

He didn't know and right now he couldn't focus because Kobas could have easily had trouble surviving on his own out in this desolate region but Caesar knew he had been upset with what had happened earlier.

When they had come upon a small group of scraggly humans and Kobas had wanted to kill them all. He and two other apes had set off after them, to ambush them outside of a store that they'd gone into probably to scrounge for food.

But Caesar had said no, a word he'd had to say a lot to the larger ape and he and two of his most trusted companions had stopped him….at least long enough for the group of humans to hear the noise of visitors and take off outside the back door disappearing into a field of dying cornstalks behind the store.

Kobas had been furious…signing how Caesar had been some kind of human lover. That the apes would need to fight and they'd need to kill to claim the planet as theirs and any surviving humans, they needed to be the one in cages.

But then Kobas' relationship with humans had been from the perspective of test subject and scientist much different than Caesar's with the humans in his circle. He reminded himself of that every time he wanted to smack Kobas into the nearest tree.

"He's now gone…."

Caesar nodded at Armani.

"We find?"

Caesar shook his head.

"No we go …he gone."

Armani understood that it would be easier for them now without the conflict produced by Kobas.

"Good…"

Caesar didn't know if it was all that good but at least traveling and exploring the landscape they had inherited would go more smoothly now. They had reached the edge of a densely packed forest, much different than the last they'd seen from where they had started. Different trees..different feeling when he looked at them.

He had seen signs pointing north and the forest beckoned to them to take that path.

Tomorrow they would start exploring them….

Caroline felt sometimes as if she'd burst wide open. She still had some time left before her baby would arrive but she felt that sometimes she wished she could move that day closer.

Even as she feared it because she still didn't know how to have a baby in this very different world.

Burke and she had become much closer but he still didn't talk much about his background before the plague hit. She knew he'd lost his family but she also knew to be careful when broaching that subject. She often thought of her own family much of which was on the other side of the world. Were they all dead, most likely and even if they weren't, she had no way to reach them, given that the means of transportation especially to faraway places had grown much more limited.

She sat on the examination table with Glen who had checked her out and pronounced her ready to deliver within the next month or maybe longer. First babies could be unpredictable, he explained to her.

She had prepared for it by moving to the encampment and doing her work there, with Burke joining her most of the time. Occasionally he'd be away for a couple of days back at the original site but most of the time he was with her and she felt better when he shared her cabin with her.

As for Will, she couldn't stop thinking about him whenever she thought about the baby….wanting so much for him to be here. She thought of the decisions that had been made which had irrevocably changed the world. If time could rewind and they could all go back…but then she'd shake her head knowing it was a useless exercise. Time only went forward, not backward and it had no mercy for the whims of the passengers it carried.

She arched her brows at Glenn.

"So you really good at delivering babies…?"

He smiled after jotting down some notes in her file.

"I've delivered a couple in my time," he said, "Caroline, it wasn't under conditions so primitive but women have been having babies for thousands of years."

Yeah she knew that and many of them had died along with the babies because before modern medicine, the mortality rates for both had been much higher. Would they return to those days now and even if the babies lived….what about the plague? Would it return for a next round of victims, stealing yet another generation of humans?

None of these questions could be answered right now, they all played a waiting game. She tried not to think about the future, focusing only on the here and now.

Daniel and Shiloh along with the younger apes had started traveling to further away places so Caroline didn't see them as often.

"You nervous about giving birth?"

She just looked at him without answering for a moment.

"Isn't any new mother?"

He smiled and patted her on the shoulder. She picked herself and stood up without falling over. An image flashed through her of her walking out of a doctor's office smiling to see Will waiting for her but it passed quickly as they often did.

Life was what it was and nothing would change it, not dreams, wishful thinking and she had to remember that.

The man slept in the steel container surrounded by glass and he dreamed while moving through a vast expanse of space.

A poker game with two of his companions flashed behind his twitching eyelids, where cards were dealt, chips were tossed down on some table inside some bar which played honky tonk music in the background. Several women wearing tight jeans and even tighter shirts surrounded them to watch the game.

Then waking up inside a hotel, with tousled sheets and the smell of a woman's perfume wafting from the and walking into the bathroom for his final shave before he got dressed and headed to prepare for the journey he had anticipated since he was a little boy growing up with his parents and two siblings on a farm in the Midwest.

Walking up the gangplank into the massive column of metal and inside the cramped compartment with his three shipmates…two men and one woman who in the past few months had become closer than his family.

They had become his family with all the preparation and hours spent for this trip, his contact with his own family had been reduced to emails and phone calls…except for his brother who he scarcely communicated with at all.

The muffled sound of the engines thrusting and the sudden push forcing him down in his strapped chair….the excitement filing his body, almost a giddiness sheathed with professional calm.

A long journey ahead but now he slept to protect him from boredom and allowing his body to be in stasis so it needed less to survive. The process didn't steal from him his dreams so he lived there for what seemed to be a slice from the huge expanse of time.

But while he slept, something happened and he and his three shipmates slumbered oblivious to the reality that everything had changed. If George Taylor had any inkling about what happened, it didn't find its way into his dreams.


	37. Chapter 37

The man who lived inside the cylinder slept inside of it, while the ship that carried him and the other astronauts headed further into the depths of space. Their journey had started with the ship blasting off and the bluish yellow of the sky fading away into purple and then sheer darkness as they began leaving the earth behind and heading out into the space.

Mars had been their target; its exploration had been the goal for the team of three astronauts, besides him. They had waited until they reached the point where the newly designed rocket ship could be switched onto where the computer that managed the craft would then be at its controls. The journey even though the craft traveled faster than any ever had, would still take too much time for them to spend the months and even years that would lapse by, awake so their bodies would be put into suspended animation or hibernation as it was called by the lays men to diminish what was needed for them to survive.

And so George Taylor had eaten one last meal with his crewmates of crudely packaged processed food that tasted like crap but packed more calories and nutrition than a five-course meal before heading into hibernation…listening to the other two men and one woman laugh and joke before they would be separated by more than a few millimeters of glass. They had also contacted NASA in Houston before and everything had been fine back on earth. There had been a strike of several unions at the shipyards on the east coast and an upcoming presidential election but not much else going on, NASA still basking in the limelight of their historic accomplishment before life slid back to normality.

"So who do you think will win the World Series," Landon asked, "I'm calling the Yankees."

Stewart, the female snorted.

"I'm saying it's going to be the Astros…I'm a Houston girl after all."

Taylor had looked at her, finding her mildly attractive but he'd left behind a few women back on earth because an astronaut who would be gone for five earth years couldn't have much of a family life after all. His brother had little to say to him, the younger one who had just come back from another one of his missions. The one who had faced the tragedy that somehow Taylor who had always been the golden boy had eluded during his own professional rise through NASA since joining the astronaut program.

The four of them had bantered about baseball and what movies they'd be missing on earth during their mission. None of them talked about their mission, what they might face and what it'd be like to return back home out of the loop for those few years.

But after saying goodnight and preparing for the long sleep that wouldn't register in their minds as being more than a few seconds, they had settled in their beds encased in metal and shielded by glass. While they slept the computer watched over them like a parent as it guided the ship through outer space but ahead of them loomed something that even if they'd seen it, they wouldn't be able to define let alone escape.

The ship entered into the hollowness of the vortex, jostled by a seemingly rapid current while its inhabitants slept their dreamless sleep.

"Hey bro, you going to go pick up the ball and throw it to me or you just going to stand there?"

The younger brother looked up at the older one and then he stooped to pick up the pigskin football and tossed it back to the dark haired man who stood two inches taller than him. A star quarterback and double science major, he had eschewed a professional football contract to pursue his Phd in astrophysics.

"Throw a spiral next time," the older brother said as he lobbed the ball effortlessly back to Burke.

Burke just knew he'd never be able to throw it as hard or fast as his older brother who had been the shining light in his family so much so that the shadows he cast hid his other two siblings.

"How's this," Burke said back, gritting his teeth.

The ball nearly took off his brother's head but the agility that would win him the Heisman Trophy allowed him to avoid it while palming it in the hand that almost every NFL team coveted at one time.

"That's much better…but you'll never be as good….or as fast…."

Burke woke up in a sweat in his bed, looking into the darkness of night. At night, they restricted the amount of lighting outside so the pitch blackness of the room had been more noticeable at first than now. He sighed and the mattress squeaked beneath his body as he got up and dressed in sweats, headed to the kitchen to get some water.

He saw a small glow of light looking like it came from a lantern and when he walked inside, he saw her sitting there. Caroline looked up at him quizzically from a book she had been reading.

"What is it," she said, "You can't sleep either?"

He shook his head.

"I went to bed exhausted but after that meeting, I just couldn't settle down…"

She sighed, putting the book down and frowned.

"I know…I think it's wrong what they're planning to do," she said, "But Carlton's adamant about getting Daniel and Shiloh and the others and all we can do is warn them if it comes to that."

"Caroline…this could lead to war if there are other apes in the vicinity."

"I know but only if Carlton, Denny and the others make any aggressive moves," she said, "They're not going to hurt us and if other apes show up, maybe they'll leave us alone."

Burke's brow furrowed, obviously in disagreement.

"That's not likely…they want to take over the planet….this Caesar that's leading them…"

"We don't know that and Caesar's not violent," she said, "If we give him a chance, there could be peace between us…it's the others perhaps…"

He sat in a chair next to her. She just looked at him, dressed in a loose shirt over some sweats with a hand on her swollen abdomen. Sleeping had gotten to be nearly impossible because of her growing condition so she had spent some nights quietly reading while Burke slept. She had thought about reading further in Will's journals but right now…no she hadn't reached the point where she could read them and not miss him so much. In some ways, she had moved past his death but the closer she came to giving birth to their child, well in some ways his absence became more acutely felt.

"We might not get that chance and maybe the movement's spreading faster than one leader can control," Burke said, "Revolutions are messy and very violent, and this one was facilitated by the plague that's wiping us out."

She couldn't deny that but she'd known Caesar longer than anyone except Will and he'd never shown any tendency towards violence…though there had been that massacre in Muir woods where a cadre of armed men who betrayed Will had tried to take out Caesar and the other apes.

"I'm going out tomorrow Burke and I'm going to warn them."

Burke's eyebrows arched.

"Caroline you can't do that, it's too dangerous," he said, "at least not alone."

She tilted her face.

"You can come with me," she said, "if you want but this is something I have to do. Daniel and Shiloh haven't hurt anyone and if Carlton and Denny go after them….it'll be murder."

Burke just looked at her, the determination lining her face and the way her eyes lit up. He knew when she spoke just now, she thought about the man who she had loved who had died. Her hand had rubbed her abdomen absently while she spoke.

"Caroline if this is about him…"

She interrupted him quickly enough.

"No…this isn't about Will, this is about what's going to define the rest of our lives," she said, "and what's going to be left of them and of us as a species."

"What's left is to fight with everything we've got," Burke said, "We can't give up, we just can't disappear….my brother…"

She looked at him quizzically again.

"What…about him," she said, "You said that he's part of that spaceship crew that disappeared before all this happened."

He nodded.

"Yeah…just as well that they're likely dead in space rather than returning to an earth so different than the one they left….one where their species is dying off…fighting for each day of existence not to be the last."

Caroline heard the pain in his face and she got up without thinking and went to him, embracing him, his face against her abdomen where her baby grew and she stroked him as he rested still against her.

Mourning the loss of his brother and the losses still to come but in her mind, she thought of a better future…one for her baby to grow up and live without the certainty of extinction.

Caesar and Kara watched as Alisa signed with other chimpanzees about her baby, the one she would have in a few months no matter where she and Caesar found themselves.

"Kobas gone…"

He sighed back at her, because they hadn't found any sign of the ape who had left with a small cluster of others who had silently slipped into the forest not long after he had disappeared. They still had enough left in their own group but the defections weighed on him heavily. What had he done wrong to cause such a splintering in forces so soon after their revolution begun and would others leave as well? It didn't seem like it right now as Kara had assured him that she had made the rounds to discourse with others and they seemed content. Alisa and the other chimpanzees had found another food stash and they had plenty to eat before slumbering again sheltered in brush where they could see the starry skies that dominated the nightscape of the new world.

Last night, he had dreamed of the old life, the one with Will and Caroline and even Charles before he had died inside even while still living. They had picnicked in the Muir woods, beneath the trees which towered above them, the ones that he loved so much to climb.

The ones that had sheltered him and the other apes as they waited for the time to take their turns as lords of everything around them…the day that had come much sooner than he had expected.

He had seen Will die but what had happened to Caroline? He had seen her sitting in the police car looking out from his hiding place and then when he'd gone back to his old home no one had been there. Had she died with all the others from the sickness or had she just left the city as part of the migration to what the remaining humans had hoped would be enough to save them.

After he left Kara, he went back to his satchel and reached inside for the necklace with the locket that held the pictures of his family, holding it in his hand. He gazed at it, not needing to open the clasp to view the inside, the photos were already etched inside his memories. Will had given it to him in his last seconds of life with instructions and Caesar knew he had to do his best to honor them. His last action for the man who had saved his life and raised him as his own son…so he thought of that right now that he was awake, trying to figure out where in this great expanse he could find Caroline and give her the locket.

But for now, he slipped it inside the satchel and turned to rejoin Alisa and Kara who gazed at each other from a small distance apart before both looked at him.

Kobas traveled in the stealth of night sleeping during the day in the brush or in some tree with thick strong branches with his cadre of chimpanzees and gorillas. The small cluster he'd been able to woo away from Caesar with promises of grandeur that would be so much better than what they left.

But now that it was dark again, they wandered down a worn trail until they left a grove of trees heading to a clearing. Kobas looked ahead of him and saw a family of chimpanzees sitting around a blazing fire cooking food. He watched them a while, silently as he figured out a plan to approach them.


	38. Chapter 38

Caroline looked over where he slept beside her on the bed, a sheet wrapped around his waist. A look of peace on his face, the lines of which had faded when sleep overtook him as it often did with men after some loving.

Earlier, he had arrived home upset after having another fight with Jacobs over the new experiments with ALZ 113, which had started several months earlier. Jacobs wanted to ante up the tests with another group of apes but Will wanted to wait until further testing was done on the virus itself. He had told her that it would be similar to ALZ 112 in all ways except it would be more resistant to the human immune system and thus the modifications it made on brain tissue to revitalize it would be permanent. He'd been excited by the new rounds of tests talking about what it would mean for patients of the disease that had killed his father but it had made her nervous.

"Some things aren't meant to be tampered with," she warned him as she often did.

"It works Caroline," Will insisted, "and if we could eradicate Alzheimer's, it will be the greatest scientific find in medical history."

She knew him well enough to know that his passion for finding the cure for that illness went behind the recognition it would give him, but it would allow him a second chance to spare others the fate of his father but…

"It's not going to bring Charles back, Will…"

He sighed and she knew he understood that and at least caution had begun to catch up with exuberance.

"I know but if it could help thousands…millions."

She caught some of his excitement but she knew that his disagreements with Jacobs would only worsen.

"What about Franklin…what does he think?"

Will frowned.

"No one's seen him in a couple of days…not since he was sent home after the accident."

Apprehension filled her.

"What accident Will?"

He had sighed running a hand through his mop of hair.

"We were dosing up one of the apes," he said, "and the virus container was breached."

"What….what do you mean it was breached?"

"Caroline…there's nothing to worry about…Franklin wasn't exposed…none of us were exposed…we took precautions but I sent him home for the rest of the day…only he hasn't come back to work."

Caroline went into the kitchen to heat up some leftovers in the microwave while he went to get them some wine.

"Will…so what did Jacobs have to say," he said, "about the virus."

"He wants to accelerate the testing," Will said, "but Franklin and I ran tests and this virus is reproducing at 10 times the rate of ALZ 112 which puts the risk of errant mutations somewhat higher."

"Meaning…you might wind up with more of a virus than you can handle," she said, "You have to be careful with it."

Will nodded as they ate their dinner but she could see the arguing with Jacobs remained with him.

Before he'd fallen asleep, she'd held onto him, basking in how wonderful it felt to have found someone who she'd fallen in love with and she knew that he loved her too. They'd been two people consumed by their careers so much so they didn't have time to socialize much with others.

The past several years they had spent together had been the best…the richest in so many ways even when….during that time she'd been so ill from some tropical disease she'd picked up. But now months later, she realized that the night they had spent together had been the last night of normality, the last remembrance of the old world. Just two days later, Will had been gone.

Weeks after that, humanity began to die off from the plague he'd left behind and society had begun to collapse.

And a baby had been conceived who would be born into a new world not yet defined.

She thought about all that as she cut up some vegetables that they had grown in a plot of land not far from the cabin she had shared with Burke. He had gone out to do perimeter with several other men but would be joining her for an early dinner before they'd go to the council meeting that would be held to yet discuss again what to do about Daniel, Shiloh and their family.

Then she heard footsteps, loud ones in the other room and the door slam. She left her vegetables and walked over, a hand on her abdomen where she saw Burke standing there, looking for something.

"What is it?"

He looked at her, his face grim.

"It's Carlton and his gang," he said, "They're set to attack the apes…there's more of them there now."

She furrowed her brow, a hand on her hip.

"What do you mean….more showed up?"

He nodded.

"I went to a surveillance point and counted about 20 of them," he said, "There's one large adult male who appears to be leading them. They were in a circle by that old campsite like they're strategizing."

She sighed.

"Maybe they're just a small group forming a larger group like we've been doing."

He looked doubtful and she knew the situation greatly concerned him.

"I'm not sure that they're not making plans for some kind of offensive," he said, "and we know Carlton, Denny and the others have been itching for an excuse to wipe them out."

She nodded.

"Yeah I do and I'm going to have to go and stop whatever they've got planned…"

He shook his head.

"Caroline you can't do that, you're…"

She tilted her face at him.

"I'm pregnant…not sick and someone's got to stop them."

She felt determination fill her and then he looked at her in that calm way of his almost softly…as close as a mercenary hardened by life could ever. He reached out with one of his callused hands to stroke a loose tendril of hair out of her face, from her messy bun.

"I don't want anything to happen to you…or the baby."

The tenderness in his voice took her by surprise…any retort she had for him left her.

"It won't…I'll be fine…and I'll take care of my baby like I've been doing."

He didn't seem so sure and she wondered why it worried him so and then she remembered what had happened to his family…not to mention losing his brother apparently in some deep space accident. She reached out to rub his muscled shoulder, solid and strong and looked at him.

"Will you come with me?"

He looked at her and then nodded and the two of them left the cabin, not knowing what they would face ahead.

Caesar turned to Kara and signed.

"Kobas apes found ahead of us through trees."

She wrinkled her brow.

"How do you know?"

He gestured up in the tree where a silvery animal moved lithely among the branches, a gibbon who appeared quite energetic despite his travels.

"He told me…we find him. Must now."

She nodded and they both went to pack their satchels while Alisa walked up to Caesar confusion on her face, her hands wrapped around her abdomen which barely betrayed her pregnancy. Caesar didn't say anything to her just stroked her face and pressed his forehead against hers for a moment as he had done with the other, Cornelia on that first day of revolution.

Alisa moved away from him and without any response to him, went to prepare for the next stage in their trip. He looked at her as she left and thought about what Kobas must be doing now. If he had met up with others of their kind, he must be recruiting forces for some type of counterrevolution, as humans had done in other countries based on the books that Charles had given him.

The new world was still so fragile even as humanity continued its decline and the apes began to rise. So easy for splinter movements like those led by Kobas to throw the burgeoning civilization into disarray. How long had humans lasted as the ruling class on earth before they had first begun to turn on each other? Caesar wanted a different path for the apes, he'd wanted it since he first realized he was one of them.

He knew the violence that had been committed already including after Will's death when he had forgiven him for what had happened. Including when Will had tried to kill him but instead…Caesar had closed his eyes. How much he had felt betrayal and rage inside of him but then the man who had raised him had died saving his life.

Kara returned with her satchel and signed to him.

"Need go now…"

He nodded and they left together to meet up with Alisa and the others to continue to move through the forest until they found out where Kobas had gone.

Daniel and Shiloh listened to Kobas and his group as they told them stories through grunts and signing around the campsite where they all sat on their haunches.

"Humans enemy…"

The chimpanzee couple looked at each other and then at him.

"Not all human."

Kobas looked taken aback when Shiloh signed that to him and some of his cohorts hooted.

"All bad…Apes caged…now humans caged…slaves…dead…."

Shiloh shook her head.

"No good human…woman…" and she rubbed her abdomen. "baby…"

Kobas eyes narrowed and his mouth snarled, the scars on his face growing more prominent.

"No baby. No humans. All dead."

The other apes looked at him and Kobas used his fingers to pick up sticks and break them over and over, saying human dead with each broken stick like a mantra.

One of the younger chimpanzees picked up the broken sticks trying to stick them back together again. Kobas saw him out of the corner of his vision and with one palm, smacked the chimpanzee's hands sending the sticks airborne. Daniel growled and moved closer to him but Kobas looked bigger and other apes began to appear out of the brushes. Some recruited by Kobas, others having come out of the shadows of the forest when they saw their numbers growing as large as those of the humans camping nearby.

Just as apes had been doing around the world, as humanity lost its tight hold on dominance.

Kobas looked around him, his lips still in a sneer knowing that in this group, he had found his own army.


	39. Chapter 39

A month later…

Caroline squinted her eyes as she looked around her, where she had been lying for the past few hours. Her hand resting on her abdomen, her muscles feeling sore and tight from her confinement…how long had she been like this?

Her head ached and her vision cleared suddenly and she saw the starkness of her cell. A cage really with a cot and not much more…where she spent most of her time except when they removed her several times a day.

The number of apes mingling in the hallways of where they kept her increased daily. But she still occasionally saw Daniel and Shiloh among them. Every so often they would slip away and visit her, bringing food for her.

Whenever the big chimpanzee with the scar wasn't looking.

She knew he ran things and that the others feared him. He had been waiting inside this compound after she had been captured. When two of his kind had grabbed her and dragged her before him, he had just glared at her with those strange emerald eyes and then he had gesticulated to the others in what looked like crude sign language and then had walked away.

The apes themselves had come out of nowhere slipping out of the fabric of the forest as if they'd been camouflaged. She had gone to meet the chimpanzee family and then had noticed from some rustling of the branches and hushed voices that she'd been followed. Burke had gone to an observation point some yards away and when she had turned around and seen the men, she noticed Carlton and Denny among them.

They had come to slaughter the chimpanzee family and she felt helpless to stop them, standing defiant and still between them, her hands shielding her abdomen but before they could launch their attack, the air filled with the sound of primates shrieking and branches breaking in the forest as groups of them. They went for the humans and reached Denny first. He reached for what turned out to be a gun but it was knocked out of his hand quickly enough and then a second and third blow and he went down.

She didn't know what happened to him or the rest because she wound up being captured in the melee. Burke had tried to reach her from across the glen but what had happened to him?

Her heart sank at the thought that he might be dead as there had been too much death already. Maybe if he'd only been captured and thrown into a cell….while in her own she had caught signs given by one ape to the next about putting the humans to work. So maybe…but none had come for her.

They left her alone in her cell most of the time. Fed her once sometimes twice daily and let out her several times though always with restraint.

So she sat and thought about ways to get out, to find the other humans and warn them…if they were even still in their settlements, alive and not driven away. After all, she closed her eyes, she remembered what had been described to her when Caesar's tribe of apes had mutilated the men who had come to hunt him, including the one who had shot and killed Will.

She opened them and saw a chimpanzee looking at her.

"Woman baby…"

Caroline watched her sign nimbly. She remembered when she had learned the language to communicate with Caesar.

"No work?"

Caroline shook her head and watched the chimpanzee appeared to ponder this. Only she wasn't exactly a chimpanzee at all. She was a…bonobo.

"Sick?"

Caroline shook her head. Except for occasional dizziness and sore muscles she felt fine. Except for being cramped in a cell most of the time and not knowing what had happened to the others.

"We travel here."

The ape had signed that and Caroline answered the same though her days in San Francisco seemed a lifetime ago. It still remained alive, vibrant with people in her mind and not the deadened shell it had become. The ape left and returned in a moment with some fruit that she handed to Caroline who saw it to be a pear. She took a bite out of it, found it rich with pungent flavor. Then she looked up and saw another ape, a gorilla gesture at the bonobo who gave her a glance and then ambled off.

She had worked as a vet at a zoo and dealt with primates in cages and now had found herself in a world where the positions were reversed.

Caesar watched as Alisa signed orders to a group of female apes who had been food gathering. They had collected fruits of different varieties and nuts so were preparing the meal. Alisa seemed more inclined to do those chores since she'd been preparing for the birth of their own offspring.

His group had arrived not long ago and had seen that Kobas had put himself in charge of a large group of apes that grew daily. Kobas couldn't do anything about his arrival because the apes were still aligned and working together. The humans remained a threat still so all the apes had to remain united. But he didn't trust his adversary either.

"Humans how many?"

He looked up from where he sat and saw Armando a gorilla await his answer. He was a newer arrival who had been placed in charge of the prisoners.

"Five," Caesar answered, "Where now?"

"Cages…"

Caesar wrinkled his brow.

"Work…?"

Armando nodded.

"Work. One no work."

"Why?"

Kara sidled in the room to stand among the two of them.

"Woman baby…no work."

Caesar knew about humans and how they had babies. Will had explained that to him. Apes had babies too. But what would they do with a human baby if it were born? Not that they had much time to think about it. He found out that Kobas and his growing army had attached humans living nearby. Some captured, some dead, some retreated. This woman most likely had been among them.

Kobas walked in then, his hulking form filling the doorway. Caesar and Kara looked up at him.

"Lazy humans….no work hard."

Caesar sighed.

"Not all humans."

After all, he remembered the long days that Will had put in at his job at the laboratory and how tired he had been sometimes when he returned home from work. That both he and Caroline had worked hard at their jobs and Caesar had seen that in others as well.

"You see?"

Caesar shook his head at Kara. He didn't need to see the humans out working or in the cages. He had work enough to do to keep the apes on their course even as the alliances threatened to splinter into fragments. Having Kobas around certainly didn't help matters.

Alisa ambled in to where the two of them sat.

"What is it," Caesar signed.

Alisa looked at him and signed that it was time for dinner and then a council meeting for him to decide whether to keep the humans there or to move them to a larger compound west of their current location.

Not to mention how to handle the rest of them that appeared to have built a couple strongholds in the forested region despite their dwindling numbers. He knew some like Kobas would favor invasion but Caesar believed in another way. If they could just control the humans as they did now, there didn't have to be more bloodshed.

Jacobs looked at Landon as the orangutan twitched and erupted into spasms in front of them. The older man appeared to be enjoying it way too much. His lips forming a smile and his lined eyes showing a quiet elation at the animal's suffering. To Jacobs, the ape was merely a serial number what all of its kind had been in the old world that for him existed mainly within the four sterilized walls of the laboratories inside his corporate headquarters. He wondered what Will would think, remembering how he had raised that one ape, Caesar like a son. But Will was dead and Caesar, well Jacobs knew he roamed out in a world desolate from the loss of humanity to make his mark.

Will had been seriously devoted to his work, to his mission in the world of scientific discovery until those last chaotic days when the fabric of the world they both knew began to become unraveled. With him threatening to quit over the rushed testing of Virus 113 and from the apes' escape. Jacobs remembered very clearly the moment when he had gone into the laboratory cafeteria, emptied of people and with tables and chairs scattered about and then he had seen the apes above him. Dozens of them looking down at him just the moment before sheer athleticism sent them over the edge and all around him.

He had barely escaped with his life. And then they'd been gone as quickly as they had arrived. But now, everything had changed, the laboratory was rotting around him and the remaining humans, perhaps the only livings ones in San Francisco. They barely ate or slept just focused on their mission to turn the tables on the apes and thus save their own species from extinction.

Landon seemed to completely absorb the sights and sounds of the dying ape in front of them and then turned to face Jacobs. His face charged with excitement and his eyes….well Jacobs thought he might be more than just a little insane. He had heard him talking to his dead son Dodge as if he were flesh and blood beside him.

"He's dead."

Jacobs nodded.

"I know…which only means that further testing is needed to see if it was the new virus."

Landon snorted.

"Of course it was…what else could it be…at last we have found a way to kill them without killing us."

Jacobs knew that it wasn't so simple…so many layers of testing remained and each needed its time when there was no time. But the lesson of rushing into the unknown to try to tame a newly designed virus…well that lesson had spread worldwide by now.

"We need to find a means of dispersal," Jacobs said, "The old way was aerosol. That's how the apes were initially dosed. And then it spread through contact…even among the humans."

"Then let's do it," Landon said, "We need to start annihilating them now before they become even more further entrenched like leeches."

Jacobs thought quickly.

"We need to leave this area," he said, "There's a base outside of Casper Wyoming that has some technology that might help us."

"Are there apes there?"

"Probably…there are few to none left here…all of them have dispersed in groups."

Landon nodded thoughtfully, that disturbing glimmer in his eye.

"Yes they have…including him…Caesar…he must not be allowed to live…he's the key to everything."

Jacobs looked at him a long moment and then nodded.

"We'll leave tomorrow and head out on secondary roads that aren't blocked by traffic."

Landon nodded and Jacobs wasn't entirely sure it was at him or if he had once again seen his dead son.

Burke paced the room while Ruth watched him from where she sat.

"You won't do anything but wear yourself out."

He just looked at her and sat down on the chair, his muscles still tensing.

"This plan has to work," he said, "We have to get her back."

Ruth nodded.

"She's nearing the end of her pregnancy," she said, "could be anytime now."

Burke just stared at her as the fear filled him, from past memories entrenching on his new life.

"She'll be okay Burke," Ruth said, "She'll find a way."

Burke shook his head.

"We have to get into that compound and we have to find her," he said, "If anything happens…"

His voice broke and Ruth picked that up but didn't say anything. She just looked at him, warmth in her eyes.

"You're right…we'll come up with a plan and I think I know what we need to do…"


	40. Chapter 40

Landon led the pack as the humans left another ruined city in their wake. It'd been like that since they finally ventured outside of the encased tomb that used to be a laboratory and finally San Francisco itself.

The stench of rotting flesh from the hundreds of thousands dead hadn't left the city yet. But finally, Landon could smell the fresh sea breeze wafting inland across the bay. The remnants of the burned out Golden Gate Bridge etched itself amid a thin layer of fog that had curled its way around its iron skeleton.

He remembered back to the day of the big fire that occurred on the bridge on the day the apes all escaped including from the sanctuary after…after Caesar had murdered his son. Dodge had still haunted the dreams of night but the realities of surviving each day kept him at bay. Landon didn't know if he'd gone crazy and at this point in a dying world, he hardly cared. He did know that Jacobs had gone silent once he saw the overwhelming canvas of destruction and death and hadn't much to say since. But then again, if it hadn't been for the likes of Jacobs, there would have been no mutant apes and no virus that would make them smarter while killing off most of mankind.

At night by the campfires, Jacobs mostly sat with some notes that he'd brought with him and guarded the batches of the new virus. Landon's hands itched to get a hold of it so he could just open up the canisters and set it loose to kill…only this time the apes would die.

"Anything to get rid of Caesar and his kind if I can't get my son back…"

Jacobs looked up at him suddenly.

"What'd you say?"

"Nothing…nothing at all," Landon said, "How soon until we reach Casper?"

Jacobs sighed putting his papers aside.

"Not sure…could be days…could be a month depending on how we get over those mountains."

Landon snorted.

"If the apes could do it, then why can't we?"

"We don't know…"

Landon's eyes lit up.

"Oh yes we do…of course they did before they spread their filth all over this country."

Jacobs figured that much too but really, they couldn't launch any kind of offense against them except…for the virus. And only if it worked in the wild as well as it had during their limited experiments inside the laboratory.

Maybe if Will hadn't died…he could tell them but then Will would probably have ran off and joined Caesar and the rest of the damn apes. He had always been single minded when it came to the ape he'd raised as a surrogate child. In the end, he'd died to save him and the two men had not left each other as friends.

Jacobs didn't like Landon at all, but at least the eccentric man with the coldly accusing eyes picked the right team to side with in the battle for the planet. Will had argued with Jacobs before walking out on him that last time. Telling Jacobs that he had no idea what he was dealing with, that the virus they were working on, 113 had started mutating at 10 times the rate of its predecessor. But why would anyone believe him? Will had been the most determined of them all to do the experimentation; he had even used his dying father as a guinea pig.

Jacobs had been there on the bridge when all hell broke loose and many thought he'd died when the helicopter had been pushed over into the churning ocean by Kobas. But he'd survived when many later died. He had learned about Will's death from his girlfriend when she stormed the lab past security one night.

Not long after people had started to grow sick and die in San Francisco within days of the Golden Gate uprising and Will's death.

"What is killing these people," Caroline had said, "Was it something that you and Will made?"

Jacobs just shook his head, dismissively.

"Those deaths are isolated…probably severe reactions to the common flu," he said, "Maybe Avian or Swine flu viruses have come back."

She clearly didn't believe him.

"I've seen people die…it's not the flu, it's something else," she said, "It's almost like a hemorrhagic fever, the kind that I used to see when I interned in Africa."

"You're wrong…most of the people are very healthy and the few that died…"

She had sighed, running a hand through her hair.

"Many have died…many at the zoo where I worked are now dead…the hospitals are already filling up. I dropped off some sick co-workers there a day ago or I tried to…they turned them away…and the hallways were lined with bodies on the ground."

He hadn't believed her when she said that, it couldn't be true. How could any virus had escaped their lab? Yes, the 113 version had breached one of its containers but it had been put back under control right?

"I know Will's co-worker died of it…whatever your company made."

Jacobs grew brusque.

"No…no he died of something else."

She remained stubborn.

"No he didn't…and many more are going to die. What is it that you made and how can it be stopped?"

Finally Jacobs had nothing left to say to her challenge and he sank in a chair.

"There's nothing that can be done if…and only if it got out and the only man who could know what we're dealing with is dead."

Meaning Will and she knew that by the look in her eyes she still mourned him and she'd been right. Many millions of people were likely dead from 113. The new virus wouldn't change that, but it might just even the playing field between man and ape before it was too late.

Caesar had been curious about this human who was with child but Kobas just wanted all humans in one of two ways, dead or enslaved. Kara had brought her food and she'd eaten it but she had no idea when the baby would be due and the woman didn't seem to have much to say to her.

He also knew that those who had been with the woman watched from the shadows. For humans were beginning to be good at hiding themselves as the apes had been before them. Sometimes the sentries thought they could see them but they already retreated back into the trees.

"I think baby soon."

Caesar looked over at Kara who had helped herself to some of the food Alisa had prepared.

"Better move…"

"Why?"

Kara frowned.

"Kobas…want kill humans."

Caesar knew that and he had done everything to thwart his adversary because he knew that ultimately if Kobas was successful, then he would have effectively taken over leadership of the apes.

He wasn't about to let that happen but how to stop him? Kara moved closer to him, in that friendly way of her kind. It had taken him some getting used to but he grew to value her wisdom.

"No kill…"

He sighed.

"Humans kill apes."

She didn't respond quickly to that one, they had this discussion before at least as much as they could through signing. But he did think she understand the mixed feelings he had about sparing a species that hadn't done the same with apes.

"Must help…"

He thought about that too. After all, not all humans had been bad. He'd been raised by them after all. Loved by them, and ultimately betrayed by them simply because he had evolved too quickly for them. And soon other apes had joined him.

"Human father…want kill humans?"

Her face animated in ways he did understand and he knew what Will would have wanted. But was that what he wanted, when would apes have the chance to get what they wanted most?

Now was that time, humans had done as they wanted and died from it.

"I see…"

Just then another gorilla, Sirius rushed in very agitated and Caesar looked at him questionably.

"What…?"

But Sirius just looked at him and made one sign.

"Come"

Caroline sat in her cell looking around her. She'd just finished eating some of the fruit that the female ape, a bonobo had given her. She sensed empathy in that ape but not in many of the others.

One, the one with the scar she had seen in passing and he filled her with fear. She knew chimpanzees could be unpredictable and violent as they aged and she'd warned Will of that many times. Not that he listened but she knew from her own experiences.

She placed a hand on her burgeoning abdomen which she often felt would explode but she knew it might be a couple of weeks yet. She'd had twinges but they weren't contractions. Soon enough that might change and she didn't want them to start while she sat in a cell held prisoner by a group of apes.

Damn, she knew she'd been stupid to get caught but not much she could do to change that, she had to concentrate on trying to survive as a woman soon to give birth. Then she had to find a way out, a means of escape so she could return to Burke and the others. She knew he must be trying to find her.

It'd been hot and stuffy in the holding area and she'd had trouble sleeping anyway because of all the mixture of emotions and fears about what would happen. She'd done the best she could to keep herself healthy.

She knew Will would want her to do that, to do what was necessary to bring their baby safely in the world. A much different world than either had ever known. Sometimes in the quietest time at night when all around her slept, she thought she could almost remember what it'd been like in the old world, when she and Will had been living together, before and after Caesar had been with them as part of their family. It'd been hardest when they had to give him up after he'd attacked the neighbor but she knew as a chimpanzee expert, it'd only be a matter of time before reality would hit and Caesar would be taken away.

Back then she hadn't known the truth about his intelligence and its origins until Will had finally told her. Why had he done such a thing, she asked him. She knew it had something to do with his father's illness but where had it left Caesar?

One night, before the apes escaped she had been asleep in bed at their house with Will snuggling against her and she had woken suddenly. She'd sensed that something had changed, and for a split second, she thought they were no longer alone in the house.

Something had been there but she hadn't opened her eyes to see its shape, or to listen to it breathe. Then sleep had taken her again, until the sunlight streaming through the window in the morning made it seem like a dream.

Then came the news that Caesar had escaped.

She shifted in her cell again trying to get comfortable and then she heard him arrive. The ape with the scar, the one that reminded her of what Will had once told her about one of his most important test subjects.

The one who had already been smart, manipulating the scientists into picking him as a test subject…as if he knew they'd make him smarter. But that had to be impossible. He stood before her now, tall and muscular.

"Human bad…human die."

She leaned back away from him and didn't look at him directly as she'd been taught during her time in Africa.

"Human die now…"

Fear filled her as he approached the cage as if to open it. She shrunk back, her hands shielding her abdomen.

Then the door opened and he walked inside…she couldn't retreat any further. Then she heard another ape cry out.

"No…."

She'd remembered that word…somewhere from another time…another ape named Caesar and then she took a closer look as the ape, a chimpanzee approached. Her eyes widened, could it be…after all this time?

Caesar looked back at her and then he remembered.


	41. Chapter 41

Earlier…

Jacobs sat at the end of a long conference table as the group of men in dark suits watched his every movement. Studied every twitch in his face, every flexion of his muscles to see if these involuntary movements matched his words to the questions they asked.

The human body had its own lie detector after all if you knew how to read the signs. Jacobs guessed that some of the men at the table had that special kind of training and so if he were to lie; it would have to be done carefully.

"We received reports…anonymously that your lab was testing a designer virus, a successor to another earlier one that had been tested on chimpanzees."

Jacobs fidgeted with his hands then stopped…knowing that the men's eyes would be on him in a minute if he kept doing that.

"Those reports aren't true…well not entirely," he said, "We were working on a designer prototype but it wasn't viral in nature."

One tall man cleared his throat.

"We heard otherwise from our source," he said, "This man worked on the team that ran tests on what's called Virus ALZ-113."

Jacobs widened his eyes just a little bit and looked that man straight in the eye.

"I never heard of ALZ-113… we did test a non-viral agent and a batch of that virus turned up missing not long after one of my best scientists left his job."

The man flipped through his notes.

"That would be Will Rodman," Jacobs said, "He was one of the most brilliant minds on staff but he became somewhat eccentric, even obsessed in the past several months before he left."

The man nodded slightly and Jacobs tried to read his eyes but they remained noncommittal.

"There was also mention of an accident in one of the labs with ALZ-113," the man said, "A breach of protocol sent the man home instead of straight to quarantine."

Jacobs held up his hands then and shook his head.

"No…no…that was simply a weakened version of one of the herpes viruses that had a container breached," he said, "The situation never got out of control and again, there's no such thing as ALZ-113."

Another suited man tilted his face.

"Are we to take your word for it?"

Jacobs smiled and clasped his hands in front of him on the table.

"Look I've read the tabloids like everyone else," he said, "These conspiracy theories about this new virus that's causing a…minor epidemic in San Francisco are just that…theories concocted by people with nothing better to do with their time but stir the populace…to piggyback on the escape of all those primates."

"Apes that might I remind you came from your lab and exhibited…let's just say qualities not normally seen in apes."

Jacobs couldn't deny that but he did have to contain it.

"Well…we bred them to be just a little bit advanced than others in their species….for our tests. If that made them a little bit smarter, it's all relative."

One of the men leaned forward.

"We have audio tapes…even video of what happened when that virus got out," he said, "A man named Franklin was infected and sent home…what ever happened to him?"

Jacobs rubbed his hands together.

"Franklin…he's home recovering."

Two of the men looked at each other and one shook his head.

"Franklin's dead…of unknown cause but a hemorrhagic fever…perhaps a form of Ebola is suspected though we're waiting pathological testing results in a couple weeks to be sure."

Jacobs just gave them a confused look.

"I had no idea…are you sure he didn't contract it somewhere else?"

One of the men felt a sneeze coming on and reached for his worn handkerchief wiping his face before continuing to lean forward.

"I don't know Jacobs, you tell us."

Landon had enough money to bury his only son, who he had discovered dead, on the floor of the sanctuary in a puddle of water having been shocked to death by the apes when they escaped.

To be specific, it had been that newer rebellious Caesar who had done the deed. The ape who looked at him with thinly disguised contempt, a disdain built on intelligence when he thought Landon wasn't looking. But the veteran caretaker had known all along that Caesar was different. He had been calling up experts to come and look at him including a young woman who worked at the zoo…until he discovered she'd been the woman who had been with Will Rodman when he surrendered Caesar into Landon's custody.

None of his other workers including Rodney who had been locked up in a cage by the apes and not killed came to work that day. Four called in sick with what sounded like the common cold, the measly wimps. He had decided that when they bothered to show up again, he'd can their asses and hire a new team of zoo keepers…to tend to his apes after they were returned. But then he'd heard the rumors that the military and police had backed off where the apes were holed up in the Muir Woods after the barbarian apes had slaughtered a small cadre of armed military solders. Fools might have been trained to fight human enemies but they clearly didn't understand how diabolical and primitive apes could get the upper hand in a jungle environment or a rain forest with foliage and tall trees to provide cover and tactical advantage.

Landon didn't feel sick at all and thought all this furor about this plague hitting the city was just a bunch of nonsense concocted by the weak minded and weaker willed residents, many of whom had decided to pack up their cars and go on those delayed vacations, anything to get out until the epidemic blew over.

He hadn't gone home last night because he'd been calling the mortuaries to come pick up his only son to prepare for burial. There was some space that had been reserved for Landon in the family plot and that would have to be filled with the body of his son. Tears weren't shed but he felt the hole deeply inside of him widen from where it had been stitched shut by time after the death of his wife.

Then there were other calls to make. He had made the rounds of tracking down his old mercenary sources and had left messages…to create a cadre of armed men of his own with no mercy in their blood to go after the apes…the ape Caesar who had robbed him of his only son.

Burke slumbered lightly since the tragedies that had ripped his life apart. His last words from his brother before he'd taken off on his latest mission into space had been to let it all go, to release the past and focus on the future. Taylor had meant well but the words had rung hollow from the brother who had overshadowed him his entire life. But he had set up his voicemail to take phone calls from prospective clients. He had spent the past weeks preparing to return to work, shutting his emotions away to become the hardened soldier who now worked strictly for hire.

This morning, he woke up and grabbed some coffee switching on the news to hear a female talking head give an update on the number of people sick with what was believed to be a late season flu. He sighed, thinking that his flu shot had been a waste because there hadn't been many cases of any flu strain and then all of a sudden…straight out of San Francisco and starting to spread. Only he had heard last night before he went to bed that this flu was different, more virulent and that more than the usual number of people died from it.

He felt perfectly fine as he rummaged in the frig to find some eggs and bacon to cook up for breakfast while he checked his phone messages. He watched the eggs bubble on the stove while he screened the requests for his services.

"This is Landon, I run a primate sanctuary out in San Francisco. I am sure you've heard of the escape of all those apes in our city…"

Oh he'd heard about it as he sipped his coffee. It'd been on the news for a couple of days until it faded away like all major news stories. He wasn't sure if they'd even rounded up all the apes or not. The story had just ended…abruptly on the Golden Gate Bridge.

"I need your help to track down the leader…the one who murdered my son in cold blood."

Burke's brows arched. He'd heard that lives had been lost on the bridge from a helicopter being attacked in mid-flight by of all things a leaping gorilla but not that many people had died…surprising actually.

"The one who calls himself Caesar…"

Caroline rummaged through her office for the files that she had kept on Caesar when she had taken care of him…beginning before she got together with Will. Her building was quiet, broken only by the sound of sneezing and throat clearing. Most of the primate keepers had returned to work after the breakout to clean up the now empty cages and patch up damaged equipment but in the past couple of days, more and more had called in sick.

The work kept her mind busy, and away from what had happened in the forest. The damn police officers had grabbed her tightly and as she struggled, had locked her up in the police car while the cadre of military men had shadowed Will into the forest hoping he'd lead him to Caesar and the other apes.

She knew now that they did find and not long after, she'd heard something deep in the forest, a ruckus and then the most unnerving period of deep silence. Then there had been some tree and brush movement not too far away from her car and after, the police officer who had shoved her in the car found Will's dead body riddled with bullets. She knew that this was Caesar's way of saying he'd forgiven Will for what he'd done, for his betrayal.

She knew then he had died saving Caesar and the other apes. That he'd made his choice to side with them against humanity. She knew that when he left her, she might never see him again which is why she had kissed him goodbye.

And it had been goodbye.

After returning to the home they had shared for several years, she couldn't stay there long. But she couldn't quite leave so she started packing up some clothes and some of his things, his journals and the picture of the three of them together in happier times on one of their trips to the same forest that had taken Will.

There'd been many happy times as a family and times grieving when that family broke up with Caesar's departure. They hadn't been married, hadn't really talked about it much being so busy but they'd been a family. When she'd been sick…she closed her eyes…well Will had said he'd take care of her no matter what and somehow she'd survived from the African virus that had nearly taken her life.

Now at work, she looked around her uneasily. Something was brewing here, something that would shift the world away from what she knew. When she went to the grocery store, the shelves were bare of cold and flu medicine and the pharmacies were overwhelmed with long lines of sniffling, coughing people with reddened eyes and splotchy faces. She knew what that looked like and kept her distance.

She also knew that Franklin had died not long after working on that new virus that so alarmed Will inside Jacobs' labs. All these pieces to put together of what might be driving this new illness but not much time to think about them….all this work to do, decisions to make, maybe leave the city before the streets jammed up with cars of people leaving. But no, she couldn't leave her friends and she still couldn't leave Will even as he lay buried next to his father in a cemetery which dug new graves daily now.

She looked at her watch before grabbing some coffee to return to looking at her files. A woman's face popped in at the doorway.

"Hey Caroline…I know it's early but this cold is knocking me on my ass…mind if I jet early?"

She looked up and saw how flushed the woman's face stepped and there were no apes for her to tend to now. So she smiled at her and nodded.

"Remember to hit the juice hard and plenty of soup," she said, "Call me if you need anything okay?"

But the woman had already left, a trail of coughing leading towards the exit into the parking lot. A sound that had become just as familiar to Caroline in the past few weeks as breathing.

Caesar sat up atop the tallest redwood he could find, almost as high as the clouds that cloaked the forest as they often did this time of year. The city had looked bustling even after the fires that choked the horizon had been put out, fires from the day they escaped the city. But in the past couple of days, his brow knit into a frown as he noticed that there were more vehicles on the roads but fewer people. Fewer helicopters buzzing the forest likely looking for them…

The apes had waited for the full invasion by soldiers they had expected after they had killed the small squadron but it never arrived, every morning they woke up to a sunrise and the noises of the forest that hid them.

Still they waited and waited….


	42. Chapter 42

The lines for the checkout at the supermarket grew longer with each passing day. Men, women some toting children threw items haphazardly in carts that clogged aisles and then when the shelves began to empty of the most desirable items, the tensely worded exchanges evolved into arguments and then the fights broke out.

First it had been over wilting produce that had seen better days by the time the first gunshots were filed in that section of the market over the last batch of softening tomatoes. Then after that, it was the dairy products even as the milk curdled and the ice cream began to leak out of its containers when the brownouts first started to happen.

Then for some reason desserts were targeted including those from the bakery. The cakes and pies had no nutritious value whatsoever but in an increasingly chaotic and foreign world, perhaps its survivors felt a need to reach for foods that comforted them mostly through positive associations.

Caroline had tried to hit one of the markets not long after she left the zoo to head on back to the house she'd shared with Will. Hardly anyone bothered to show up to take care of the animals at the zoo anymore and the remaining staff took over the feeding and maintenance schedules. Even though she'd been trained in handling primates, since few remained since the breakouts she'd been assigned to oversee the care of the great cats, the elephants and a pair of giraffes. They all seemed healthy despite the growing number of humans growing ill around them. They'd start out with the sniffles and reddened eyes, then blotchy skin and a high fever and then…Caroline didn't want to even imagine what she'd seen during the later, uglier stages of the still unnamed plague.

Will's virus…though that wasn't entirely fair…because once he realized that the genie might be let out of the bottle in lethal form, he had warned Jacobs to stop the tests. Even before his assistant had died alone at home, covered in his own blood.

But she knew that she wouldn't be working at the zoo much longer, that she couldn't stay in the city much longer than that. The stench of the dying had begun to permeate even the afternoon sea breezes which rustled through the trees. Shopping had proven difficult enough as she picked through the remains of the items that littered the shelves while dodging fist fights over canned peaches or the last package of chocolate chip cookies.

The very last of each she knew because nothing would ever be the same again, civilization as they knew it was dying. She didn't know how she sensed this but she knew that this plague was no ordinary cold or flu. Having survived a tropical disease herself though not knowing why, she realized that something devastating had struck the human race.

After paying for her items, she left behind the harried girl with the bloodshot eyes and blood stained handkerchief to drive her car through the cluttered streets to the neighborhood where she had lived. The lights flickered at best at night and some of them had been vandalized even shot at by roving carloads of crazed men armed to the teeth and looking for a target for their rage. She kept out of their line of sight and when she entered the dark home, she didn't leave any form of light on. Most of her neighbors had disappeared including the pilot who had lived next door with his family. He had taken off for work on a long haul flight and never returned even as one by one his wife and then his daughter and son took ill and were taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Preparing food in the darkness with fading electricity proved to be a challenge so she stuck to eating food out of a can and packaged food and spent her nights sleeping wrapped up in a comforter that reminded her so much of Will. His presence remained in the house, the door closed awaiting his arrival home from work but of course, he wouldn't be coming back.

The door bell rang and she gave a start from where she had been eating barely warmed vegetable soup in the kitchen with lukewarm milk. The brownouts had been growing more frequent and longer and it was getting harder to keep perishable foods cold.

She didn't answer it at first hoping the person would leave but the person kept hitting the button so finally she got up…but not before reaching for a crow bar she had kept inside for protection and then looking through the peep hole.

Landon of all people stood in front of the door awaiting it to be opened. She did so finally and slowly.

"Hi…what can I do for you?"

He pushed his way inside her house, looking agitated and his clothes wrinkled from having been slept in and worn for days. A sour odor from his body reached her and she tried to ignore it.

"Where's your boyfriend?"

She looked at him, her eyes narrowing.

"He's dead…so why don't you just leave?"

Landon's eyes hardened.

"So is my son…murdered by that damn ape he kept here."

Caroline sighed.

"Caesar wouldn't kill anyone," she said, "He only reacts physically in self defense of him or his family."

Landon sneered.

"You know better than anyone being a primatologist that an adult male chimpanzee can't be anything but dangerously unpredictable and yet you defend him."

She raised her chin.

"I lived here with Will and Caesar for five years," she said, "I know Caesar and how intelligent and gentle…"

"Oh come off it…you weren't here when he chased a man down like a predator hones on prey and brutally attacked him biting off his finger tip. But I know you heard about it."

She sighed, remembering that Will had tried to find Caesar but the chimpanzee had rushed out of his attic sanctuary to defend Charles against the agitated next door neighbor upset about the accidental damage to his car.

"He thought Will's father was in danger."

"He's a brute and needs to be stopped and if Will can't tell me where he is now, then you tell me."

She folded her arms.

"I don't know where he is and even if I did know, I'd never tell you."

He spat venomously.

"You traitorous bitch, don't you see that your pet ape is leading every ape in the damn city into revolting?"

She flashed her eyes at him.

"He just wanted freedom for himself and the others," she said, "It might have not been right but it's understandable under the circumstances."

"When he and his army have conquered mankind, will you still defend him?"

Caroline thought that to be farfetched. After all, it'd only been several hundred apes and while she now knew their intellectual abilities had been revved up by a designer virus created in a lab, they still were very limited in what they could do.

"People are dying from this epidemic."

She had heard there were scattered reports of people dying in hospitals by the dozens and graves being in short supply in cemeteries. But surely the plague was just a slightly more virulent flu than usual and would burn out soon enough…even though it bore resemblances to hemorrhagic that unnerved her.

"When enough of us die off, then they'll take over…"

Caroline just wanted him to shut up and get out of the house.

"Just go…and don't come back. The man you want is dead now and Caesar's somewhere safe."

Landon didn't give her the argument she anticipated but flashed her a look of disbelief intermixed with hatred before leaving her alone again in the house.

Outside Caesar crept up through the brush, swung nimbly through low branches on a tree and then ambled up to the window looking into the kitchen where Caroline stood having lit some candles while eating what looked like something in a tin can. He had been watching silently while the man he despised Landon had been inside the house. And he knew that he'd be looking for him and the other apes.

He had sworn revenge after Caesar had inadvertently killed Dodge his son. But all Caesar wanted was for Dodge to stop hurting the apes and to let them leave. He hadn't felt like killing again but he knew the same couldn't be said about some of the others. Alisa a female chimpanzee had started hanging around him and although she could never be Cornelia, he didn't mind her presence.

Cornelia had died and nothing could change that and nothing could change the identity of her killer. Caesar closed his eyes at the memories on the big bridge, when she had collapsed there foaming at the mouth and a flash had hit him just then that she'd been poisoned. A few seconds later, his mind deduced how and something broke inside of him then. A fundamental part of himself died and there would be no going back.

Caroline stood by the sink after putting something in the cupboard, her long hair bunched up in a messy bun and her eyes looking wan. But then Caesar knew the world had not become easier for humans. They were getting sick and dying while the apes waited in the trees, unaffected. He knew that more would die just as suddenly. Would Caroline be one of them?

He hoped not for she'd been kind to him from the time she tended to his injuries, the kind that came because he began to outstrip his confined environment as he grew larger and stronger, not to mention bolder and yet more confused. Of all the humans in his family, she seemed to best understand his alienation even among those he loved.

Something tugged on his arm and it turned out to be Alisa trying to pull him away from the house that raised him and back to the others. They had begun wandering through the increasingly deserted city at night, unseen while checking out sources of food though the markets were bare.

Caesar shook his head at her and kept looking in the window. He still felt drawn to where he grew up and his life among the humans. When he'd last seen Will in the forest, a part of him wanted to return with him to the city but the largest, most fundamental self that he'd grown to know wouldn't let him. His life belonged to his own kind, the apes and the humans were now the outsiders, the enemies even as he knew they were weakening with each day.

Yet his mind flashed to the past.

"Will he's growing bigger," she said, "He won't be small much longer."

She'd been talking to Will as they sat in the living room cuddling together as they often did while Caesar played with his puzzles on the floor.

"I know but isn't he amazing," Will said, "Far beyond what anyone could anticipate."

Caroline had frowned then, not knowing the whole truth about Caesar.

"What do you mean," she said, "He's a chimpanzee and chimpanzees have intelligence but how is he different?"

Will had looked at her, remaining silent because back then, he didn't know how the truth of Caesar's origins would impact her feelings towards him and his surrogate son.

"He's special."

She had smiled at that because she thought so too and they talked about other things, more normal topics about where to eat dinner the next night, what movie to see and a planned summer vacation. They hadn't known that Caesar had paused with his puzzle left undone and had listened.

Yes, he indeed was special. Very special, he sensed that much. But he was beginning to wonder if he were human. After all, Will related to Caroline in ways much different than he related to Caesar and that confused the young chimpanzee. They occupied a world apart from him, one that left him outside looking in…just as he had been by the window while his surrogate mother scrounged up dinner all alone.

As the apes numbers would continue to grow, humanity would find itself more scattered, feeling more alone while the apes would continue to flourish and grow together.


	43. Chapter 43

Earlier…

Caesar loved his vantage point from the highest of the redwood trees, the ones who grew thickly for hundreds, even thousands of years in Muir Forest. Charles had given him a book one day about the redwoods and how they had silently watched in the background, the one constant as history unfolded. Species rose and they fell into extinction, while the trees continued to grow and flourish.

The other apes took to the trees, happily climbing up rediscovering their agility and nimbleness and the enjoyment of living freely out in a natural environment and not in enclosures or in cages. They'd escaped from the laboratory where Caesar had been born, from the zoo and from that hideous sanctuary run by the evil father and son.

He remembered the son's body stiffening as the electrical shock of the taser ran through it. Caesar hadn't known that his own actions would cause the man's death, only that he wanted the apes to escape and the blond haired man who had tormented them for so long had been in their way. Still, if he had known, he would have done the same thing. He knew that now after having watched a cadre of armed soldiers cut down the man who had raised him in a hail of gunfire…just at the point that they had come back together again. Will might have betrayed him but ultimately he had given him life…twice. After the apes had made short work of the soldiers tearing them to pieces, he had hoisted up Will's body and run through the forest until he laid him down tenderly in the soft earth and watched his surrogate father's life fade away. Will had been at peace, as Caesar rocked his injured body dying with the knowledge that he had been forgiven.

Then after Will had breathed his last, Caesar had taken him to where he had heard some sign of activity but had remained hidden in the brush watching as the only sign of life was Caroline sitting in the police car. He heard another vehicle arrive so he took off, leaving Will where he knew he'd be found.

Caesar sighed as he looked out from 200 feet in the sky over the city of San Francisco that looked way too deserted much more so than he'd ever seen it. It'd been like that for the past several days. The streets looked empty of people but littered with cars and garbage. Occasionally, he'd see someone wandering the streets seemingly going nowhere.

The apes grew restless as they needed to find food which meant they'd have to forage closer to the city. They'd raided some abandoned cabins at night taking what they could eat but soon food became in short supply.

He thought about organizing forage parties to start looking in the fringe of the city limits keeping an eye for any signs of trouble. With that thought, he climbed back down to terra firma and saw Armando come up to him. The other ape signed to ask if they were in danger. Caesar shook his head no, if an army was going to come out and finish them off, they would have tried that already. They had been watching and waiting but no humans showed up to take them on. Alisa wondered up behind Caesar and signed that she wanted to look at the books with the pictures again. They had found them in one of the cabins and Caesar knew them to belong to children.

He nodded and she squealed happily. The rest of the world could wait for a while. Soon they would decide what to do next and in the time being, they would just watch and wait.

Jacobs headed out of the pharmacy after having found some antibiotics for the sick men in the lab. They had lost most of what they had stored in the explosion caused by the apes' escape and they soon discovered that their virus wasn't the only thing out there making people sick. Other people caught bacterial infections perhaps because the standard of living had dropped so much just in several weeks.

He hadn't seen anyone in the pharmacy. Most of the shelves were stripped bare and packages lay strewn across the floor. Damn, mankind sure wasn't going gently into the last night. He saw blood stains on the ground where people had walked in wounded seeking first aid supplies or perhaps it came from fighting over the dwindling stash of supplies. He guessed that most of these items wouldn't be restocked on the shelves any time soon because there weren't any people doing any of those jobs now and medicines including antibiotics probably weren't being produced in factories as at least most of the city seemed to have come to a grinding halt.

God knows how the rest of the world fared but while the televisions had still been broadcasting, the news had grown increasingly grim as his laboratory's plague began to spread. Hitting hard in various spots, then retreating before advancing on another population. The men who had come to interrogate him on its origins hadn't returned. Jacobs guessed that they had either died out or fled San Francisco only to find out that this virus respected no boundaries at least not those manmade.

He saw the pharmacy section in the back and noticed the door hanging off of its hinges. He crept there quietly in case anyone was hiding, waiting to attack him. But there was no one to watch and when he slipped inside the doorway, he saw the empty shelves. His spirits fell until he saw a couple of bottles discarded on the floor seemingly forgotten. He bent down to pick them up and saw that they were antibiotics so he tucked them away in his clothes. As he moved around, he cast a glance of him in a cracked mirror and saw a stranger. He'd scare more than a few people with his thick growth of beard and sideburns not to mention his clothes but then washing clothes without technology seemed too laborious.

Finally after stashing more medication in his pants, he left the store pulling his hat down over his face. As he approached the lab, he ran into Carlton who had made a jaunt to the only grocery store that hadn't been looted and burned down by rioters.

"What's up?"

Carlton toted a bag of what Jacobs guessed to be packaged or canned goods. Anything perishable had rotted a while ago.

"You need to come back to the lab," he said, "We've found some flasks of 113."

"I thought it had all burned up in the fire."

Well except what had already spread nearly around the globe, Jacobs thought, but they'd been so sure. Now he felt a glimmer of hope. If they could work with it, tame it and then cage it while altering its DNA again this time to attack apes…then there might be some hope of winning this war and saving mankind from extinction.

It was a long shot but they didn't have anything to lose given that they were already losing in a race against time…

Caroline wrapped a sheet around the last of her colleagues to expire from the plague. Tim had worked with lemurs after graduating from a PhD program with honors five years earlier. She'd watch laughing as he'd come to staff meetings with a ring tailed juvenile lemur clinging to his neck. Now, he lay dead on the cot, his face flushed and splattered with dried blood.

Damn, it had been tough nursing him through the three day period when the victims hit the peak of being febrile, agitated and very delusional. Then their skin became bruised and blotchy, angry red everywhere just before they started bleeding out and sneezing blood. She knew how to take precautions when dealing with Hemorrhagic fevers not to mention nearly dying of one herself after exposure to a monkey from the Philippines that had shipped in from Sudan. Once, it had been her lying febrile and soaking the bed sheets with sweat, her only memory a splitting headache, muscles that felt as if they were being torn apart and very hot.

If it hadn't been for Will, who had been with her and had been the first thing she saw when waking up….she'd be dead but somehow she felt as if some pieces had been missing. Even the doctors flown in from the Mayo Clinic hadn't been able to figure out why a disease with a mortality rate near 100% had spared her. It hadn't been airborne thankfully and she'd been quarantined. But Will…no she didn't want to think about that time in her life or even about him.

She couldn't…the world had fallen to pieces around her, its orderly and comforting structure dissolving within days and weeks into sheer anarchy and chaos. It had just reached the point when the worst of it had passed, the riots, the burnings and the spilling of the blood on the streets that wasn't just from the plague. The past day or so, all that upheaval of a civilization crashing had been replaced by an unearthly quiet. The streets had emptied out though when she'd gone to the store to get some food, there hadn't been many people.

Animals roamed the street because some of the zoo keepers had released the animals not wanting them to die of starvation locked up. They joined the throng of stray cats and the packs of loose dogs abandoned when their owners sickened and died….or left them behind when migrating out of the city.

Tim couldn't be buried. The graves had filled up and no more would be dug. She didn't know what to do except to wrap him in a sheet and leave him here. She'd be leaving soon, the city that had given her so many wonderful memories. Will and Charles were dead…so were most of her friends and colleagues and Caesar… She'd been feeling a little ill herself in the mornings when she awoke from her cramped couch in the lounge of the zoo office. She took that as a sign to leave the city which had already began to smell from the rotting flesh of dead bodies and the garbage left behind with no one to remove it.

He had disappeared with the other apes into the Muir Forest. She thought she knew where having been there many times with him and Will. But she knew if someone asked, she'd never tell them the location. And as it turned out, she hadn't been asked. The city had been too busy getting sick and dying to even remember that a group of apes had liberated themselves and escaped from the city.

But she knew that they were out there somewhere.

The far future…

The lithe woman stood in the brush, remaining absolutely still as if she were a deer in the forest sensing a hunter. She still remembered what a deer was even though she hadn't eaten one in a while. They'd been scarce this season because it hadn't rained much. So she and the others in her tribe relied on the berries they picked from overgrown vines and bushes and fish they caught from rivers stocked full with them. They caught small mammals in snares and dined at night by the fire, keeping it down almost to the embers so as to remain undetected.

For they were like the deer, in a world with hunters, they were the hunted. Their numbers reduced in a rush of activity that took over the forest so swiftly like a gale force wind and the screams of her tribe members being plucked out of the forest lingered in her memory until the next time.

She had grown up strong and fast, a survivor honed by natural selection to be a survivor. Her wavy long dark hair had never known a knife, tied behind her with a leather strap. Otherwise it would hang loose down her tanned back almost to her hips. She had shockingly blue eyes that surprised the others around her with their brilliance leading some to believe she had magical powers. She had keen sight that could penetrate brush and ears that could pick up the crackle of a branch yards away. Both had kept her alive and in the forest safe from disappearing.

Right now she watched the others foraging for berries, keeping her attention focused for the hunters. She had heard tales by the campfire while growing up what happened to the disappeared. That they were sacrificed to a god, which they were cut open, their guts spilling out and roasted over a fire to be eaten. That they became slaves toiling out until dropping dead of exhaustion, the scars of whip lashes on their back threaded out like the branches of a tree in the forest.

Suddenly it seemed like something changed around them, that a breeze carried a hint of something new, something different. Others noticed it too looking around them. Then one of them pointed watching a fireball streak across the sky, so brightly it was visible in the daylight.

The woman fingered her necklace and the locket attached and watched, waited.


	44. Chapter 44

Earlier…

Landon felt like he was going crazy the moment his dead son appeared in front of him and began speaking. He had been lying in bed one of those long nights after burying Dodge in his grave when he saw the curtains rustling over the partly open window.

The sounds of the city hadn't been as intrusive as usual and he's felt himself start to drift off, his eyelids begin to flutter when suddenly the vision of his son appeared in front of them as real as life. He'd been wearing his casual attire of jeans and a hard rock tee-shirt, a wardrobe Landon usually frowned upon but right now…

"Dodge…"

Landon reached out with a shaky hand towards the apparition in front of him. The one that he desperately wanted to be real but he knew…no it couldn't be as he'd witnessed his son's dead body on the floor in a pool of water himself. His burnt flesh contaminating the air with the most hideous odor imaginable…one which the memory of made him recoil right now. But it wasn't any more real than the man standing in front of him.

"My son…"

The vision recoiled them almost as if he'd been insulted then it vanished away. Landon wondered at that, what had he said to elicit such a reaction? Was it really his son or something he'd imagined? God knew Dodge had been one of the biggest disappointments in his life. The son that he'd raised had turned out to be a boozing, drugged out punk who could barely perform his duties at the sanctuary and they'd had many arguments over his work ethic.

But his son never listened to him. Despite his shortcomings, he'd been the only child Landon ever fathered and he had always assumed his son would outlive him. He'd outgrow his vices and raise a family of his own, with sons to carry on the family line. Of course that hadn't happened and it never would, and Landon's family name would die with him.

He didn't know when that'd be. He knew that many people had gotten sick and died already. He heard the stories of crowded hallways filled with sick patients at all the trauma centers, of traffic jams of frantic families packing their vehicles to the gills before leaving town.

San Francisco couldn't be quarantined off. It was too late for that for the virus had already spread across the country. Rumor was that patient zero had been an airline pilot who had flown his shift instead of calling in sick but Landon suspected he had caught the disease from someone else and had merely been a vector.

"Everyone's going to die because of those damn stinking apes," a familiar voice said, "You should have just let me kill him."

Landon looked up suddenly and saw his son standing in front of him again. In recent appearances, he had found his speech and kept telling his father that Caesar should never have been allowed to live.

Well Landon knew that now, the whole world had learned that after reading of how he led the rebellion across the city to the Golden Gate Bridge and then deep into the Muir Woods.

Then nothing followed the outrageous slaughter of a cadre of armed men. But Landon knew that any attempts to squelch the apes there had long passed. He had been in the pharmacy and had seen that man who had been in the news so prominently lately. Some CEO of a pharmaceutical company named Jacobs had been lurking among the mostly empty shelves there looking for something, probably medicine. He knew Jacobs had seen him standing there but now was not the time to confront him over what had happened with the apes and what must be done now that the world was dying.

"You need to avenge my death Father," the voice said, "You need to take your gun and shoot that damn ape in the heart. If that doesn't work, try a stake and push it in so deep, he'll take his final breath before you remove it."

Landon sighed, knowing that it couldn't be his son speaking to him, it must be the deep sense of rage lurking inside of him feeding him the words in his son's voice. Just as it must be fueling the vision that appeared in front of him…

"You're not real…You can't be…"

Dodge just stood there.

"I'm real to you," he said, "as long as you avenge my death and kill Caesar."

Landon nodded slowly, knowing his son was right. He must do that and now with the fate of the entire human race at stake. Because he knew that whatever led to Caesar's rise, was what was causing mankind's downfall.

And he suddenly knew where he needed to go to find himself an ally in that fight.

Caesar turned sharply on the even larger chimpanzee challenging him. Kobas hadn't warmed up to him being in charge of the apes that had settled into life in the Muir woods. Most of the apes had savored their freedom, their new life away from the confinement of laboratory cages and zoo enclosures. But Kobas bristled because he didn't like playing the subordinate role to anyone whether it was one of the scientists at the laboratory he escaped or another ape here miles away in the forest.

But Caesar knew he had to keep the apes together here and lie low until they found out what to do next. He had led some scouting trips into the outskirts of the city and had realized quickly that no armed forces would be coming to look for them in the forest. The city looked desolate and seemed quiet except for the branches rustling in the trees and trash cans rolling in the street spewing garbage. The stench which met them almost sent them back into the forest, almost like ripe fruit that had spoiled and then rotted only much, much stronger.

No sign of life except an occasional cat roaming around the quiet row of houses with empty yards. They'd foraged a bit in houses which had been as empty inside of life as they had been outside. Where had the people in this neighborhood gone? Caesar recognized the area and knew that the house where he'd been raised since infancy was but a few blocks away. Will and Charles were both dead but what about the animal doctor, would she be there?

Kobas bumped his shoulder with his larger one as he walked past him to get some food, testing him as he always did and Caesar knew a time would come when they'd have a battle for dominance. A battle that Caesar didn't really want…he didn't even want to be the leader. But the other apes depended on him to lead them out of the forest into a new world just as he'd led them across the bridge to the forest.

Alisa came up and signed to him that she'd saved some food for him and some picture books and he went to join her. But he didn't know what he'd do about Kobas or the inevitable day when they'd clash for the last time.

He didn't want it to be today or tomorrow but he knew that nothing would stop that day from coming.

Caroline climbed over the cars that blocked the bridge that led out of San Francisco. It still stood even though somehow it had caught on fire and the spans had been charred black though they still held strong. At some point in the epidemic, the residents had packed up their cars and headed out of the city believing that if they could just leave it behind, they'd leave behind the sickness that had taken so many lives already and be safe in the rest of the world.

She knew that those who survived the journey had found out how wrong they had been in that belief. The disease that started in the lab where Will had worked had spread much further than San Francisco.

After packing what she could carry including the journals from the home she shared with Will, she took off riding a bicycle as far as she could until reaching the bridge where the traffic jam proved to be nearly impassable. The only way to navigate it was to climb over the bumper to bumper traffic that seemed to span its entire distance. She hadn't seen anyone else around that day and she holed herself up at night in an abandoned building so as not to be seen. The violence that had shrouded the city when anarchy took over from law and order had spilled blood in the streets and those bodies lie alongside those who had been killed by the virus.

The sun had shone brightly as if it were another beautiful day. Just like one that she and Will would have spent taking Caesar into the Muir Woods for exercise and exploration which would end with a picnic underneath the shade of the canopy of trees.

But now she wished it would be a bit cooler. Her body felt hot and the perspiration on the back of her neck soaked her shirt. She had eaten very little that morning, only a couple of energy bars she had found inside a convenience store that had nearly been stripped bare.

Her body ached and her fingers felt sore from maneuvering her way over the cars and she'd stop occasionally to rest. Nausea had hit her before she'd eaten her energy bars, from the time she first awoke. Just as it had on previous mornings during the past week or so…but within a few hours she felt fine. At first, she thought it was from her haphazard eating habits, relying on what she could find to feed her, mostly canned or packaged foods nothing fresh. Not to mention the permeating smell of the dead.

But in the past day or so, she began to realize that there might be another cause for her symptoms. She could be pregnant, because about six weeks earlier had been the last night she and Will had spent together just before learning that Caesar and the other apes had escaped.

The possibility tore her up inside, adding to the shock of trying to survive in a world where her kind were disappearing. She'd always wanted to have a family of her own and more recently, she and Will had discussions about the future they wanted to build but for it to happen now…how would that work? What would it mean to have to fight for the survival of a child as well as herself, to give birth to a child in a world where their species would very well go extinct?

What on earth was she going to do next?

She didn't want to know the truth. She didn't want to sort through the debris inside a store to find a pregnancy test so she'd know for sure. She didn't want to think about it until she couldn't avoid it anymore.

So she continued her journey out of the city to try to find others so she'd know she wouldn't be alone. Everything else including the life that might be growing inside of her she pushed in the back of her mind while she focused on staying alive.


	45. Chapter 45

Earlier…

Caesar looked at Kobas who had bared his teeth at him.

They had been foraging through the empty grocery stores of what had once been San Francisco and noticed only canned goods left. Even the packaged food had been ripped up and poured onto the cluttered floor. Almost as if the remaining humans had fought over the dwindling resources even as their own numbers dwindled….the end of them wouldn't be pretty.

Caesar had remembered a poem that Charles had read to him once when they had sat at the breakfast table together while Will had been at work. It had been by a dead man named Dylan Thomas.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight  
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,  
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.  
Do not go gentle into that good night.  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

He had learned how to read and Charles hadn't seemed amazed or even surprised by that. But as he lumbered through the decaying city streets, he remembered those lines. The city bore little resemblance to what it had looked like when he had led the apes through its streets to the Golden Gate Bridge. But something had caused the people to die…and it hadn't been the apes at least not directly.

Caesar sensed it had to do with his surrogate father Will and the laboratory where he had worked and where Caesar had been born of a mother who had died protecting him.

And now years later, he knew what from.

Even Will the man who had saved his life and raised him as his own had betrayed him and though Caesar had forgiven him during those moments he held his bleeding body in his arms…it didn't change the fact that mankind was the enemy and it was dying.

But Kobas was a different problem all together. He bore a hatred of those who had enslaved him that chilled even Caesar. Because it had made him urge the apes to commit acts of violence that had started in the Muir woods after Will had been shot.

"No fight…"

He had signed that so many times to Kobas, futilely perhaps but he meant it. Ape wouldn't fight ape, not in a world where they were still outnumbered. If it hadn't been for the sickness…they might be rubbed off the earth already.

Kobas rose up to his full height which scared the other apes, but not Caesar. After all, he had spent years growing into his increased intelligence and Kobas and the other apes, much less time. But Kobas appeared to be smarter than the others…in ways that couldn't be explained by the elixir that Caesar had found in Will's home.

The giant ape with the scarred face definitely kept him on his toes. But they all had to pull together and remain united, like the bundle of sticks he had once showed them in another place. Apes, not gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees would someday rule.

Alisa moved up closer to him and he looked at her, but he still saw Cornelia, as she died in his arms. Her body convulsing, her mouth foaming from the poison that he knew would kill her.

As it should have killed him…because only one person knew his weakness for cookies…and he was now dead.

He sighed thinking it did no good to go back. Maurice would sign of its foolishness. That apes heads were aimed forward towards the future not the past. If they were going to leave the chains of their slavery, they had to keep their eyes on freedom.

"Come…see…"

That's what Alisa now signed and Kobas and all thoughts of him receded to the background as they walked to the next shop. It looked deserted like the others, but a man lay in a pool of blood on the floor, his flesh rotting away and flies swarming around him. The stench still remained unbearable but they'd tried to ignore it because they needed food to live.

But what they saw were rows of bottles and an area with a cash register shielded behind thick plastic almost like a cage. Kobas went up to give it a closer look then pounded it with a fist but it didn't yield.

A couple of the apes went to check out the bottles decorated with fancy labels and filled with liquids. One of them twisted off a cap and sniffed the top before sipping from it. Obviously he liked what he tasted because he gulped it on down. Some of the other apes joined him and hit the bottles, drinking their contents.

But Caesar didn't and as he watched a couple of them start swaying and staggering he feared they'd been poisoned.

Landon had left the house to get groceries trying to use his phone to try to contact the man he wanted to hire to kill the ape who murdered his only son. But damn it if cell service was down, maybe for good this time. After the illness broke, it had become more difficult to make calls as more and more often the circuits were all busy and then came the beeps telling him that he was out of service range.

Those became more and more prevalent and now…silence.

So he would have to kill Caesar himself if he could find him. He had wandered from shop to shop looking for food and then he heard some crashing noises from a corner liquor store. He crept up there to peer inside a cracked window and saw some apes of different kinds drinking from the bottles there. He sighed, as he saw them lurching about as if they were drunk.

They probably were…they might be more sensitive to booze than humans. He tried to determine if any of them were Caesar focusing on a huge chimpanzee with a scar on his face. But where was the one he sought? If he was there he couldn't see him and he didn't want to alert them to his presence. Oh they'd all get what was coming to them soon but now he was just outnumbered.

Landon looked once more and then continued in his search for supplies, dreaming of the day when order would be restored and every ape would be either dead or locked up in a cage as it should be. Mankind would return to the top of the food chain, leaving this blemish of its history in the past.

He couldn't imagine this ending otherwise.

Caroline woke up from where she had been crashed inside a house that had mercifully been unoccupied. Maybe the owners had joined the massive migration out of the city before its borders were closed as part of the useless quarantine. It had been useless the day that Walter had been sent home after the vial that he'd been testing had been breached and had exposed him to the deadly virus that now had spread much further.

She had eaten something to settle her stomach and her nerves after she'd taken her third pregnancy test. The world might have ended, her species might be heading towards extinction but somehow she had conceived a child amid all this…well before it had all gone bad. His or her father had joined the millions dead only from bullets not from a pandemic.

She needed to find others like herself. It wasn't safe for her to be by herself especially now. She never slept well, her body tense to have to take flight in case she was discovered.

And it was some of the humans who scared her more than the apes.

But the city had grown silent in the area where she now had holed up and she knew she'd have to get even further away. She had lost hope that the disease hadn't turned other cities into ghost towns but maybe if she could find other people…they could band up until they found more people…

She lay back imagining what that would be like. Damn, she missed seeing others like her and talking with them. It had been lonely since she'd tended her last coworker into death. How long ago had that been? Days or weeks?

In the morning, she had to pack up a few things, food and other supplies in a pack and get moving until she left the city that had turned into a mausoleum behind. Will would want her to do that for herself and their child. The one that would never know his father and then she remembered the journals.

She had gathered some of them up from their home before she had left it. And photos of them and Caesar. But when she met up with others, she'd keep those hidden because she knew that others wouldn't feel towards him the way that she did. They only knew enough about him to blame him for their own downfall.

She closed her eyes so that sleep could find her but her mind planned for the future.

Much later…

The woman fingered her necklace as she often did, watching the others in her tribe foraging for food. They had all seen the fiery ball land but none had gone to check it out.

Too dangerous to be out in the open and not hidden in the protection of the forest….because she had counted back on the notches on the latest strap of leather that she made each sunrise and it had been 21 of them since they had last seen the hunters.

She knew soon they would return to snatch more of her kind out of the forest to disappear them forever except as part of stories around the fires. They had to be careful even then lest the bright light attract those who came for them. But so far, they hadn't come at night. Maybe like the humans, that's when they slept.

Occasionally snips of information would make its way to their camp. Skimpy details about the hunters and the hunted which were taken far away, slung over the rumps of the charging horses. The hunters villages with buildings and cages for them. One younger member of their tribe had followed the hunters for a couple days and found a village where he watched from a nearby hill.

When he returned, he drew with a stick in the dirt the village and signed what he had seen. Three different classes, the scientists, the rulers and the warriors, which didn't make much sense to the woman…and then he had continued with his story.

The hunted in cages made out thick branches of wood woven together and inside, a dozen or more humans sitting and standing with buckets of water being thrown at them and a watery gruel that coated their skins. The boy said that had been their food, that they scraped off with their fingers and then hungrily sucked them. Many of the hunted had lost weight, the outline of bones being visible as they sometimes fought over scraps of food that were occasionally tossed in the cages as well.

Then the scars…the scars that were visible on the shaved heads of some of them…what did that mean? She didn't know. The scientists would be most interested in those with the scars, the boy had signed.

Anger recoiled inside her lithe body which bore its own scars picked up from living hidden in the forest since the birth she didn't remember. Her parents, only dim images of their faces before they too had been snatched out of the forest.

She felt nothing, not sadness, not fear really and she didn't know what it meant to be anything but watchful.

So she put the rest aside and climbed up a tall tree to keep watch in the forest awaiting the hunters' return.

But her mind thought about what lay beyond where the fire ball from the sky had gone.


	46. Chapter 46

Present

Caroline looked at the chimpanzee standing before her. The one that had lived with her and Will as a member of their family.

Then she remembered the other one. She recognized him somehow as the one who'd given Will so much trouble. The one who had gotten the new serum and then there had been an accident. She had read about what she hadn't known in one of Will's journal. The ape in front of her had hated humans on sight and had tried to escape even before the day of the revolt.

But Caesar had held one of his arms up to ward him off and just stared at her. Then he made the sign that she knew on sight.

Doctor.

That's what he called her because that's how he knew her first. She had treated him for an assortment of injuries resulting from his collision with the world around him while he outgrew the attic room that Will had created for him. The one that she knew would become a cage, a prison for him when he was fully grown. She made the sign back for him and he remained standing there. Then when Kobas tried to advance again at her, Caesar reared up, made a roaring sound and Kobas backed away finally.

Then he looked at her again.

Doctor…

"Yes…Doctor."

He signed at her, why?

"Why what?"

"Why here?"

She sighed and thought that was a much longer story that could be told with her hands. She had learned sign language but had never been as good and as quick at it as Will who used it like a second tongue.

"I leave city…people sick, die…friends die…"

Caesar knew that was true. He had seen them lying dead in the homes that the apes had gone into to forage for food and supplies. More of them there or in the hospitals than out on the streets…but then the churches…many of them had gone there to pray before they died and many didn't make it back home in time. He knew prayer because he had read about it in books and had seen television but he didn't understand it.

"Will…dead…"

She nodded and sadness tugged at her.

"I know…saw…thank you."

He ambled a little closer to where she sat in the cage and she thought not for the first time how the order had changed. Apes had been in cages, Caesar had been born in one and now…everything had flip flopped. Because of the apes but also because of Will and what he and the other scientists had unleashed on the world.

"Men…kill not apes."

She knew that too because apes didn't fire guns at least not then. Only men did and Will had known that he put his own life at risk if he followed the apes.

"I tried…men stopped me."

He tilted his face looking at her.

"Men…bad…"

She couldn't argue with that because she'd loved Will so much and had lost him. Their baby would never know his father now. When she had time to think about that, it saddened her.

"Not all…Will…Charles…"

Caesar looked down at his hands and she knew he missed them too. She smiled at him.

"You lead now…?"

He nodded curtly.

"I lead…here…I find you."

That surprised her, why had he been looking for her?

"Why…?"

But then other apes followed by Kobas rushed into the room, hooting some of them. Others signed and Kara was there too.

"Kill human…"

They all looked at Kobas and some appeared to nod while others watched.

"No kill…," Caesar countered, "She…safe here."

The other apes then turned to look at Kobas who just rose up taller.

"Humans…evil…"

"Not all…she…doctor…apes…we need."

Caroline listened and thought well at least she had a skill that might keep her alive longer…at least long enough so the others might find her or she might find her own means of escape. But so pregnant with the baby so close, she knew she'd be hampered for a while.

"I…doctor…I help…"

Anything to keep her child alive and safe inside of her and maybe after birth…but the world had turned so dangerous in such a short time in so many different ways.

The apes looked at each other. Caesar signed.

"Doctor…stays…"

She knew he had just saved her life and that of her baby. The female ape walked up to her and signed that she was Kara. Caroline knew she was a bonobo. She'd heard a colony of them a ways away had escaped not long after the plague took hold of the western half of the country.

"Baby…"

Caroline rubbed her abdomen and nodded.

"Yes baby…"

Then Kara went to get her some food while Caesar signed at a couple gorillas to open her cage to release her.

Landon scowled at Jacobs. The guy was a worthless suit as far as he was concerned. They had finally left god forsaken San Francisco rotting to nothing but buildings and rusted metal to head east. Jacobs kept the virus aerosols close to him. Though they traveled together, he couldn't let Landon near them. He didn't trust the man because he'd heard him talking to his dead son as if he were right there. The guy had lost it or was losing it in a world that was falling apart and that meant all the more reason to be careful.

Yes, they'd release the new virus, the one that might reverse the perverse path that the world now traveled on regarding the evolution of its two primary species. They might wipe out a lot of apes and save what remained of the human race. But it had to be done carefully and methodically and not as a result of rash emotion.

They argued it at night where they camped and Jacobs had to remind him that if any of the apes in the area heard them…but then Landon would remind him that he was more than willing and able to smoke a few of them to try to even the score of them having stolen his son.

"A few dead apes as a trail so those that follow can remember who's in charge…"

Jacobs chuckled without mirth.

"Was in charge…haven't you noticed, the pecking order has changed."

Landon shook his head.

"Never…and if you weren't so pansy assed about that virus, we'd be back at the top already."

Jacobs frowned.

"No…it has to be done at exactly the right time and place."

"I want it to be done when we find him…the ape who killed my son."

Caesar…Jacobs knew that he'd always have trouble with him after finding out that Will had stolen him from the lab the night they'd killed his mother.

"That might be soon…they couldn't have traveled far."

"Can't be soon enough for me," Landon said, "You know I was hiring a mercenary to do the job before it all went to hell because I knew your lab and the military wouldn't have the stomach to take them out."

Jacobs just looked at him. Nothing surprised him about Landon anymore. The man was clearly capable of anything but it was too late to keep him on much of a leash. But Jacobs did have the virus and it was in a safe place…and it would be used without hesitation when it came time to do that.

Landon would see for himself that Jacobs was a man who made the tough decisions and did things that would make most men pause. He'd kill his inventions swiftly to save the world from the mistakes of those who worked for him.

In front of them, the sun sunk below the horizon as another day passed and it was time to set up camp again. To engage in another battle of wills over the fate of the world, one Jacobs knew he must win.

Burke looked up at Ruth.

"This can't wait any longer," he said, "We've got to get her out of there."

She sighed.

"I know how you feel but it's too dangerous. We just got to a camp we know the apes can't easily locate and any action against them puts us all at risk."

Burke shook his head.

"Then I'll do it…myself and a couple other guys and we'll get her back."

"What if you get captured," she said, "What if they want to find the rest of us? What then?"

He knew she meant torture. But he'd been trained and experienced in both giving and receiving it in different methods. That made him the best one to go and get Caroline back.

"She's got a baby to be born soon," he said, "I know it's not much of a world left for a child but it needs a chance."

Ruth furrowed her brows.

"Burke, when did you get so soft?"

"It's not softness, it's survival… we can't reproduce then we're as good as dead already."

Ruth understood then. He knew she did. They needed to find out if humans born into this new world could survive it or would die with the rest as soon as they took breath. The fate of their species lay in the unborn.

Caroline's baby would be the first and since she was clearly immune…

"We need to get them both back and that's what we're going to do even if I have to go in alone."

Plus he missed her much more than he'd ever admit to anyone. She had kind of grown on him. So as Ruth just looked at him he went to go work on a plan.

Ready to go at it alone but hoping it wouldn't come to that.


	47. Chapter 47

Burke looked at Ruth.

"It won't work," he said, "I know they keep the humans locked up in the center of their settlement."

Ruth sighed looking over at Glenn.

"We have to get her out of there," she said, "Her baby's just about due."

Burke knew that and he thought about it all the time. He didn't want Caroline to give birth while a prisoner of the apes. But getting her out of there was going to be harder than any of them thought. The apes kept a tight perimeter of guards around their most populated areas and Caroline had to be somewhere. He knew they had to do more recognizances to find the best way to go in and it might take more men than they had right now. The apes' arrival had sent humans further into the mountains and the wooded areas. As if his kind or what was left of it, knew they were too weak to fight them…at least right now. They would hide away for awhile, watch and then regroup with a plan if their numbers got stronger.

"I know Ruth but we don't want to lose them both if an escape plan goes wrong."

"No we don't," she said, "but having a baby in this new world is tough enough if she were here with us."

Burke rubbed the back of his head.

"Caroline's strong…as much as any woman I've known," he said, "Somehow she'll get through this and she'll survive."

"But the baby…"

"She'll look out after it," Burke said, "I don't want to risk her getting caught in some crossfire. They're getting much savvier with their weapons."

Ruth nodded.

"Yes…well I guess we'll have to do as you say," she said, "We'll have to keep watching and wait."

"Not much longer I promise," Burke said, "We just have one chance to get this right."

Ruth went to go pour some more water to drink. The day had been hotter for some reason. This whole last few months had been crazy, more so than he could have imagined when he first heard of the ape uprising in San Francisco.

He hadn't known that Caroline had been so intimately connected with that. He'd just known that he'd received a frantic phone call from some man…an animal trainer at some primate preserve that had wanted to hire him to go after the ape that murdered his son.

Of course, his own life had gone crazy when the plague started to hit where he lived. So many people had died…most everyone and those who hadn't, never fully recovered. Many of them probably died of other things, unable to take care of themselves in a hostile environment.

He hadn't returned the guy's phone call and pretty soon it wouldn't have been possible to do so as society's infrastructure began to collapse.

"I'll go tell the others," Ruth said, "but most of them wanted to leave anyway."

Burke nodded.

"Let them go," he said, "the few of us will figure out what to do."

She turned to leave the building as he thought about what to do next. He hated leaving her in there another day. But his missions that had gone wrong, always served to remind him of how important it was to plan accordingly and make it count. One wrong move…

He thought about his brother, the one that had gone into space before the world all went to hell. He had heard just before the ape uprising that the spaceship had disappeared and that NASA was trying to find it. What had happened to it? Whatever its fate had been, it had to be better than the slower demise faced by the remnants of the human race.

Landon put all his supplies together. Jacobs had announced that in a day or two they would be near a populated area of apes to use to test the new virus. Hopefully it would reverse what the 113 version had done and kill off the apes. As it stood now, it had infected apes to enhance their brain power and humans to wipe them out.

"You ready to go?"

Jacobs looked up at him.

"Why the hurry," he said, "Some of our men are slowing down. They're tired."

Landon glared at him.

"None of us can be too tired to do what needs to be done," he said, "We need to wipe out those apes before they own the planet we built."

Jacobs understood that but he had difficulty taking orders from a man who had been seen talking to what he believed to be his dead son. The man had to have been driven crazy by grief and anger at his loss.

"We need to find some food…"

It had grown scarcer since they'd been hiking through narrow mountain trails. The few cabins they had found hadn't yielded much food. They appeared to be mostly used seasonally and their owners were probably long dead.

"We've still got some dried jerky and nuts."

"That's not enough to keep us going," Jacobs said, "Some of the men are about to drop."

Landon threw up his arms.

"Then let them die…you know if it hadn't been for you and your damn experiences, I'd still have a son."

"Will stole him from the lab when he was a baby…"

"Who let him?"

Jacobs sighed.

"One of my other employees who died of the virus…"

Landon chuckled derisively.

"Oh yeah…patient zero right…the one who doomed the rest of the world because no one thought to quarantine him."

Jacobs couldn't blame that on Will because he'd quit before Franklin had his accidental exposure to 113. He stood up and looked at Landon.

"Okay we'll take the lower trail," he said, "Maybe we'll have better luck finding some food."

Landon didn't respond, he just grabbed his pack and walked away in disgust.

Caroline sat in the room with Caesar and Kara as they signed back and forth. She understood most of it and knew they were talking about Kobas again. The chimpanzee had become more insolent and rebellious with the decision to keep her alive. When she had been released from confinement, he had nearly gone ballistic.

Will had told her all about him and there had been more than a bit of wariness maybe fear in his voice. Not that he'd ever admit it of course. But she'd been glad when he quit.

Caesar ambled over to her and signed.

"Hungry…baby…"

She just smiled and signed, okay.

He gestured to Alisa to bring her some food, some of what looked like berries, blackberries and boysenberries. She picked up some in her fingers and ate them. She felt much better now that she'd gotten water and some gruel made out of corn and rice. The baby had kicked since her release and she knew she didn't have much longer to go.

Caesar had asked about the baby and had signed that Alisa his mate was expecting. She had felt happy about that, and knew that Will would be excited too if he were alive. He of course would have been wondering if the intelligence that Caesar had received from his mother would go to any offspring. Alisa had been dosed elsewhere obviously and most likely with 113. There were as many questions to be answered about the evolution of ape intelligence as there would be about human survival.

The babies that both she and Alisa carried would bring some answers.

Caesar had shown her his collection of possessions including some taken from the house they had all shared sometime after the plague. She saw some of Will's worn journals that she hadn't seen yet and some photos of Caesar and his family including a poignant portrait of him with Charles.

"Baby when…?"

Caroline signed back that she didn't know but soon. Caesar moved closer, his hand placed gingerly on her swollen abdomen.

"Baby I care…"

She smiled back, knowing that he meant it. For as long as she was with them she and her baby would be safe.

"I help you?"

Caesar read her signs and then nodded.

"Ape sick…"

She looked over to where a young female orangutan lay on the floor, on a matt of branches and leaves. Kara had been brushing a leafy branch over her body. Caroline went to take a look at her and saw that she looked listless. She saw foam around her mouth.

In her mind, flashed images of Cornelia on the bridge just before she died. After being poisoned with a cookie meant for Caesar. And looking at Caesar as he looked at Will at that moment, she realized that he knew.

"What she eat?"

Caesar scratched his head and looked over at Kara who signed back.

"Leafs…"

Caesar showed her which ones and Caroline took a careful look at the shiny green leaves. She turned to Caesar.

"Bad leaves…poison…"

Caesar bared his teeth and she knew what he remembered. But he just went and joined Kara by the orangutan. Caroline thought and then signed.

"Antidote…"

Then she went to work. She knew what plants she needed and which sap to mix with them to create something to counteract the toxins in the ingested leaves. So she mixed them up and when finished, Caesar watched as Kara fed them to the orangutan.

Then they all waited.


	48. Chapter 48

Caroline had sat vigil with the orangutan that had eaten the poisoned leaves. She knew that the apes were far from their natural habitats on other continents and that the instinct that had driven them to find food hadn't always kept them out of trouble. The orangutan originated in Borneo and Indonesia, in rain forests far different from the northern part of what was the United States bordering Canada

At first the orangutan stopped convulsing and twitching and dropped off into a sleep. Kobas had been nearby and when he saw what happened, he grew agitated. He drew up to his full height and tried to approach Caroline but Caesar and two other chimpanzees stopped him. Not that Kobas cared much about orangutans like this one, believing that they weren't as fierce or intelligent as they needed to be under the new order. But Caesar had reminded him that despite the differences between the groups of apes, they all needed to band together in one or else what was left of humanity would move against them trying to force them back in their cages and zoos.

Caesar signed to her.

"Better?"

She sighed, not sure but she did know that the orangutan was at peace. But would she survive the poison? The antidote had been crudely made and it remained to be seen whether it would work. She stroked the reddish fur of the still ape while the others watched.

"Soon know…morning."

Caesar gave a slight nod and moved next to Alisa while Kara ambled over to her. She started stroking the orangutan while Caroline mixed up more of the antidote in case it was necessary. The room felt hot and she needed water so she signed to Kara and the bonobo went to fetch some. She felt heavy, not surprising given that she was due to give birth to her baby.

Will's child created in a world now gone. Kara returned with the water and she drank it from what looked like a chipped glass from a child's tea set. Caesar came up and signed, baby. She smiled at him.

"Not now…soon…"

He walked up closer and she felt him move a hand towards her abdomen. She didn't flinch, she'd helped raise him for a period of time and knew he'd never hurt her. She'd had a lot of her knowledge about chimpanzees challenged by his existence. What had been done with his mother, the one Will had called Bright Eyes.

"Baby happy…?"

She looked at Caesar not sure how to answer that question. She hadn't felt it kick in a while and she knew it might be dropping into a more cramped position before being born. It could be days…a week maybe left. But more likely than not, her baby would be born here and she had to prepare for that. She felt fear at the uncertainty of its future, whether it'd survive the struggle to be born and what about complications? What if it were breech or stuck inside her? What if she died with her baby from what would be easily remedied in a hospital? Not that there were any around but she'd grown to trust Glen and Ruth enough to know she'd be safe when the time came but they were not here.

She'd have to hope for a normal birth in an abnormal world. But Caesar would be here even though Will would not. All that remained of Will and Charles was her baby and…Caesar.

"Food need…"

She looked up from the orangutan who still hadn't stirred but Caroline knew it breathed easier and the heart rate approached normal. She felt fairly certain it would live. Alisa came up to her slowly, shyly with a bowl of fruit and Caroline ate several pieces. Caesar joined her, placing his hand on her belly again.

"I help."

She looked at him then and knew he meant it. Whatever had changed in this world and the relationships between man and ape, some things remained the same.

Family, not conventional maybe but the two of them were left and when Alisa and she had their babies, it would grow if allowed.

Landon had found food for all of them. A deer that he had taken out with a gun he brought, the gunshot resounding through the forest. Jacobs and others had feared that they might be heard by apes but none came. They cooked the deer over an open fire and feasted on it. Landon ate the tenderized meat remembering when he'd taken his son hunting when they hadn't been at the sanctuary. When Dodge's mother had still been alive…she had helped them pack up on their father son trips.

Life had been so different then, so less complicated. The end of the world sparked by an ape revolution had a way of changing everything.

"It's good food."

Jacobs had said so grudgingly. Landon knew the corporate president didn't like him. Fair enough, he despised Jacobs too but the two needed each other to stay alive for the moment and to save what was left of their species. Landon knew as long as he lived, he wouldn't stop until he restored humanity's place at the top of the food chain.

That would be soon enough and then afterward he could join his son.

"How are the canisters?"

Jacobs just looked at him from dinner.

"Safely stored away and completely intact," he said, "They'll be ready when the time is right."

Landon sighed, knowing that Jacobs held the cards in that decision and enjoyed it. But then Jacobs had done the lion share with his skeleton crew of altering the virus. Sometimes you had to put up with the intolerable to get what you wanted and he'd done worse in his life.

"When we approach a colony we'll just use it, disperse it."

Jacobs looked at him suddenly but Landon had just laid that out matter of factedly. He was going to get his pound of flesh for his son's death too and more than that.

"Yes but we must be careful," Jacobs said, "I'm fairly sure it won't hurt us like 113 did."

Landon chuckled dryly.

"It did more than hurt. It destroyed us. I'm just trying to even the score."

Jacobs nodded.

"The world might be too far gone to save it but I want to try."

Landon wanted more than that. He wanted his son back to life but knew he'd only see him in death. He wanted to leave behind the world he knew by the time that he met his own fate.

Burke sighed as he lay back on the cot. He missed Caroline so much and the emptiness of her own bed reminded him of how much. He'd grown used to having her around when he preferred to be alone but it'd been more than that. He cared about her very much too and her unborn baby. He had to find some way to get them both back.

He'd come a long way since the plague hit. He'd been a hardened mercenary living from one high risk assignment to the next. Each one digging a deeper hole inside of him but the money had been good. He'd given it to family until the plague had robbed him of that…not to mention everyone around him. He'd been uncomfortable surrounded by people even in a small town but when they all died and the air fell silent, it unnerved him more.

His brother haunted him. Taylor as he called him, growing up. The one who had dwarfed him in everything he did…joining NASA and being an astronaut had only sealed the deal. Before their father died, he had given Taylor all his attention and what he called love, his older brother had thrived while he'd received only what his father had left. But Taylor took care of him, more like a father at times than a brother.

When NASA had found him in the woods and told him his brother's ship had vanished while journeying to Mars, he felt something inside him break…though he'd never admit it. He knew space travel had its hazards but he never thought the danger would touch his brother.

He couldn't mourn a brother who was lost to him. Not knowing if he lived or died in space, where his ship had gone and what happened. Not much time to mourn with the entire world dying on the heels of his brother's end. A blessing indeed that Taylor had died not knowing that the world that held everything he knew had died with him.

Apes running it, he knew his brother wouldn't believe that. But then who would unless they were trapped in the middle of it?

He'd lost Taylor forever and now Caroline…but she still lived and he knew she'd survive. But how would they get her back?

Much later…

She stood absolutely still as one of her kind, taller and thinner stroked her long dark hair off her face. He saw her locket and picked it up. She knew it held secrets she didn't want to share so she tugged it away easily enough. He released it and then picked up a long stick to draw in the damp earth.

They were in the forest, in a small clearing surrounded by thick trees leafing vines that would trap them there if they weren't careful. Then they'd be sitting helpless when the hunters arrived. She narrowed her dark eyes watching him draw carefully.

First lines, then shapes….then a building and what looked like a clearing surrounded by blocks where people might sit or stand like rocks in the edges of the forest. She knew what he drew. She'd heard many stories about the hunters and how they brought her kind into the arena and did horrible things. She'd grown up hearing the stories from different sets of parents to keep her from straying too far from her kind even though she liked to explore.

The hunters looked funny, not like them. They had hair all over their bodies and wore armor. They rode big animals with sharp feet and that could run swift as a river. Plucking up her people, struggling to get them on the horses and then they were gone, leaving stillness in the forest behind…but she'd seen enough so she shook her head and reached for his stick.

She took it in her hand and then she started drawing what she'd seen fall out of the sky.


	49. Chapter 49

Burke woke up drenched in sweat. Darkness surrounded him inside the bungalow where he slept alone. Noises of animals scurrying around alerted him to the fact that no matter what his dream told him, he still lived in the middle of some forest deep in Canada.

The only place that had seemed safe to them since the end of mankind's domination over the continent, still didn't feel like where he belonged. In his dream, he had been face to face with Taylor his brother. His brother had been telling him something, standing before him in his astronaut suit only it had been torn. His brother's face hadn't been clean cut as he remembered his hair no longer in its regulation buzz cut. He'd worn a shaggy beard, his hair ruffled and his eyes hollowed.

They'd been standing in the middle of emptiness talking until the earth shook, the sky darkened and and the ground cracked between them until soon an abyss forced them apart.

"Taylor…"

"It's too late..."

That had been his brother's only words he remembered when he woke up. The images lingered much longer than the usual ones that were memories of the two of them growing up together. Tossing a football back and forth between them…swimming parallel to the shore in a huge lake that froze over in the winter months for ice fishing inside a snug hut warmed by their body heat.

He missed his brother even as he'd spent most of his life in his shadow and not liking it. But he'd barely gotten the bad news from NASA about the ship that carried him and three other astronauts disappearing when his own world fell apart.

Better his brother face a quick death in a space accident and never learn the truth about what happened to the world he left. At least the fates had shown him and the other astronauts that mercy they had denied others.

He got out of bed and stepped out of the bungalow into the quietness of his surroundings. He saw the sky so crammed with stars and imagined that he also saw Mars where his brother's ship had been heading.

He felt even more alone now that Caroline was gone, held prisoner somewhere inside the apes' camp. More and more apes had been arriving he and the few others had discovered while keeping surveillance on it from their vantage point. The apes sent out groups to scout out the area and he occasionally saw them led by a burly ape with a scar on his face that seemed more than a little volatile in temperament even for a chimpanzee.

Caroline was nowhere to be seen but he imagined she was almost due to give birth to her child among her captors. He didn't know what fate awaited both of them or what would happen to them. He had started out wanting to fight against the apes, to kill as many as he could get his hands on or shoot down with firepower. But now, he just wanted to get her and her baby out of there and then the group of humans would just leave the area, regroup with the others.

Try to increase their own numbers over time hidden away out of sight until they had enough to challenge their rulers. It might take a generation or two to reach that point but they had to start at a new beginning.

The plague had taken its toll already and there would have to be enough healthy humans like he, Caroline, Ruth, Glen and others and hopefully future born humans as well.

Beginning with Caroline's baby…born to an immune mother and a father who'd died before the virus' infection had spread to reach him.

He headed back into the house to get some water, feeling his throat parched. But he knew he wouldn't slide easily back into sleep again.

His mind kept him awake, thinking of ways to free Caroline and then dismissing them as too risky or not likely to succeed.

And he was running out of time.

Landon looked at the vial that Jacobs had shown him and the others.

"It worked on the orangutan," he said, "Poor thing died within two days."

He looked over to where they'd bagged the orangutan that they had abducted from where it had straggled behind a small cadre of them. Before it could protest or alert the others, and then Jacobs had one of the scientists spray it with a tiny bit of aerosol.

Then they watched and waited for it to get sick and die. Landon watched the final spasms of the orangutan struggling to breathe as blood wept profusely from its nose. Then after it moved no more, he kicked it.

Some guy looked at him and he shrugged.

"No great loss there."

He knew that his son would approve of what he did even as he implored him about why Landon hadn't done anything to keep Caesar from killing him. Dodge appeared each night during his dreams and sometimes…even in daylight in the shadows he could make out the outline of his son.

"We need to find a larger population to disperse it," Landon said, "Kill more than one at a blow. A lot more…"

Jacobs sighed.

"We have to be patient."

"We have to start fighting back now," Landon insisted, "if we don't, we might not have a chance to turn the tide away from them taking over completely."

Landon knew that time ran out for humanity. The plague hadn't just reduced its numbers but it had dulled their cognitive abilities enough so that they wouldn't fight back. The ones like him who were still sharp would have to overthrow them.

"We'll do that," Jacobs promised, "We'll encounter a big enough group, a colony soon and then we'll do measurements to determine which point will be most optimal to disperse the virus."

Landon rolled his eyes at the corporate head of a defunct company, thinking the guy overthought the situation way too much. He had to do less calculation and more action to get the upper hand quickly.

"You owe us more than that Jacobs," he said, "Your prior virus is what started all of this and if it weren't for you, my son would still be alive."

Jacobs shook his head.

"I wasn't responsible for Caesar. I didn't even know he existed."

Landon scoffed.

"You should have known what all your employees were doing," he said, "including your loose cannons."

"You didn't suspect Caesar yourself when Will first brought him to your sanctuary did you?"

Landon sighed, Jacobs had him there well, almost. But it wasn't the same thing. Caesar was smart enough at that point to hide his intelligence from those he didn't trust. He gave a great impression of a dumb chimpanzee, Landon had to give him that.

Not that it mattered how smart he proved to be, he'd be a dead chimpanzee as soon as Landon found him and took the steps to avenge his dead son.

Caroline woke up and saw that the ape she'd been tending to had stopped breathing harshly and slept quietly. Alisa had brought it some food while she slept because the bowl only had traces of it left. Good, then the orangutan would definitely survive and so would she.

Caesar ambled up to her and signed.

"Ape live…?"

Caroline sighed back, "yes better much."

Caesar signed back either "good" or "thank you" she couldn't tell which based on his facial expression. Alisa came over as well and stroked the orangutan as it slept. Caroline looked at Caesar.

"No berries."

Meaning that they weren't to eat any more of what had poisoned the orangutan. Not all of what looked edible in the forest was safe. They had been lucky this time.

So had she.

She felt the need to get some food into her and Alisa brought over some fruit and some of the gruel that they made. She couldn't quite identify it but it didn't taste bad. During her sleep, she'd dreamed about her old life. The days that she and Will had taken Caesar out to the Muir Woods to explore the tallest of trees.

He'd sought refuge there with the other apes after the standoff at Golden Gate Bridge. She dreamed of Charles before he'd grown so confused, the man who'd fueled so much of Will's research into curing the disease that took his father's mind, his memories and then his life.

After she ate, Caesar gestured at her to follow him out of the room and she got herself up on her feet and did that. He met up with the bonobo introduced as Kara and they went outside, her first time since she'd been captured.

She saw the other apes working to build structures made out of branches that seemed to be part of several of the trees. They helped each other lift the branches and bond them together. Caesar, Kara and she walked through the area where some food gathering had taken place and she saw how they avoided the poisonous berries.

Caesar looked to where a group of apes had been scouting the area, making sure that there were no enemies which were now the humans. She didn't see any of her kind but they could be hiding in the brush watching and waiting.

She put her hand on her belly as she watched Caesar issue instructions to the apes who worked. Then he turned towards her and signed.

"Doctor here…"

What, she signed back.

He tried again.

"Doctor here…work fix…"

Ah, she understood it now. This was where the clinic would be located and it looked like she would be working there as the doctor. Okay, she could work with that at least for now as it as much as her relationship with Caesar was her key to survival.

Both for herself and her child.


	50. Chapter 50

Taylor floated through space inside the spaceship that kept him alive. The other three astronauts lay in suspended animation in separate chambers. All of their bodily functions handled by the computer that served as a surrogate mother.

But the astronauts dreamed even as their bodies lay in stasis. Their minds traveled far back to earth, back to the lives they'd left behind.

For Taylor, that meant going back to his ranch in Colorado, one state away from his estranged brother who worked as a mercenary taking jobs around the world. Taylor had tried to scare him straight then to shame him but his brother didn't view what he did as sordid, it embraced his sense of adventure, his sense of fatalism and made him more than enough money to buy his own spread in Montana. Far away from everyone but the hardiest of ranchers and survivalists and away from his family roots.

Taylor's ranch housed horses and cattle and he'd left it to another brother to oversee it during his long stints either going on or training for his NASA missions. Images of his deceased parents flashed in front of Taylor back in the days when he'd looked at his family life through rose colored glasses. Playing baseball on the lot near his elementary school and working at a diner while earning a football scholarship in high school. The local boy made good, that's how the newspaper headlined Taylor's life back in an obscure rural town.

His marriage had been brief, his engagements even shorter. The parties, the pickup football games between the astronauts training for different missions and then his final days on earth before leaving on his mission to Mars.

Mars took several years to reach so he and the other astronauts slept in stasis most of the time until the computer woke them up to prepare for the landing on what would be a new frontier for humans. He'd be the Neil Armstrong of the little red planet and he had his soundbyte to be heard around the world already rehearsed inside his head.

But what Taylor didn't know was that he would never reach his destination. He and the others would reach a destination but already their spacecraft had been diverted from its programmed course and sucked inside what might be called a vortex.

He didn't know that back on earth his ship had been reported missing, that it had apparently vanished and had yet to be seen again. He also didn't know that this had happened even as humanity's own reign of the planet was coming to an end.

All he knew were his memories as his whole life played out in front of him as he slept.

Landon shook his head.

"I think we'll need more wind to disperse the virus."

Jacobs sighed.

"We can't risk it," he said, "We still don't know if it'll harm us."

Landon chuckled.

"I don't see how things could get worse for us," he said, "and we need to get as many of them don't we?"

Jacobs didn't know how to read the man in front of him. He looked more scary with each passing way and he'd heard him talking to himself, only every once in a while the name, Dodge would slip past his lips.

Dodge, his dead son.

If Landon's sanity was slipping away, Jacobs had to be careful around him. He couldn't let him get his hands on any of the aerosols which held the engineered virus. So he had them stashed away in a locked container in one of the bags.

"Where is the virus anyway?"

Jacobs refused to tell him.

"It's safe until it needs to be used."

Landon shook his head.

"I don't think you have the balls to kill anything let alone your own creations."

Jacobs pulled on his collar steeling himself.

"Oh you couldn't be more wrong," he said, "I want these apes to die. I knew we should have just shut the project down after the first one or two failures."

"Yeah right…it's your company," Landon said, "You could have gotten them to do it."

"I only really managed it," Jacobs said, "I had a position on the board but it was more symbolic. The people with the funding held all the cards and they wanted this miracle drug to line their own coffers."

Landon snorted.

"How much could you get for a deadly virus," he said, "Too damn lethal to get far enough to use it as a military weapon?"

Jacobs sighed.

"That wasn't its intended purpose."

Landon stared at him, not blinking.

"It is now."

Jacobs knew that. He didn't need reminding. After all, he had suffered too. God, the publicity once it came out that the apes that'd raised mayhem in San Francisco on their way to freedom were escapees from his lab, stock values had dropped markedly and investigations including one by a Congressional Committee had been launched. He'd been subpoenaed to explain why these apes had gotten so smart. The man they should have put in the hot seat had already been dead.

As bad as that had been, it had been nothing compared to what happened when people started getting sick and dying. The disease started like an innocent cold but soon morphed into something truly horrific. Graphically manifesting itself as a hemorrhagic type illness more suited to Africa than the western United States… he'd seen what Franklin had looked like when they found him dead bleeding out of every orifice alone in his apartment.

Records showed that Will had just sent him home after a breach in the 113 protocol rather than put him under quarantine. Any chances to contain it…were long gone as soon as Franklin left the building. It had already started spreading when Jacobs had been focusing his attention on what happened on the Golden Gate Bridge.

It had been one slowly unfolding nightmare since and Jacobs cursed Will blaming him for the whole mess and for exiting from mankind's tragedy prematurely leaving people like him to suffer much longer.

"Dodge…we're going to finally do it…we're going to kill Caesar and the others…"

Jacobs looked up to see Landon's eyes glaze over again and he knew that his sanity had slipped once again.

Caroline slept on the mat, thoroughly exhausted from treating two more apes that had eaten the poisoned berries. Both would survive the experience but it had been touch and go for a while. She knew what that must be like having been deathly ill herself.

It had been not long after she had first moved in with Will while she still worked at the zoo. She'd spent a month on a research project in what had been Zaire. It had been one of the most rigorous but rewarding experiences in her life. She'd grown up living around the world with parents who had lived with various indigenous cultures that they had studied so living in an African village was like coming home.

But she'd been happy to return back to Will, Charles and a younger Caesar who had wanted to play with her when she arrived home. She'd done that but within a week of returning to work, she'd been exhausted, feeling rundown and feverish. Her eyes reddened and ached along with her head much worse than one of her migraines.

By the time she'd been rushed to the hospital by Will, she'd gotten splotches on her body and her nose started to bleed.

She had been diagnosed with some strain of hemorrhagic fever related to Ebola. Will had stayed with her from what she'd remembered as much as they'd let him and she vaguely remembered drifting away to what she thought was death.

Then she'd woken up and seen an unshaven Will still sitting there holding her hand and she'd been very weak but feeling better.

How could that be, she'd asked when she asked Will about it while recovering at the hospital and then later at home. The strain she'd contracted was considered nearly 100% fatal and yet she survived it. He'd never really answered her just said that he'd prayed for her a lot but he'd never struck her as being all that religious.

The images of what it'd been like to be deathly ill floated in her head, unable to be held fast before drifting off again.

Suddenly she felt something shaking her. She opened her eyes and saw the ape named Kara looking down at her. Caroline sighed, what?

Kara sighed back that Caesar want, see her.

Caroline got up on her feet, not an easy task these days since she'd gotten to the end of her pregnancy. She put a hand on her abdomen as she reached for something to help her stand while Kara watched. The bonobo loved to touch her abdomen and she did so after Caroline had stood up.

"Baby big?"

Caroline nodded, it certainly felt that way. She'd be going into labor any day now and that unnerved her. She didn't know what she'd do without Ruth or Glenn or anyone who could help her. She'd be on her own given that the apes themselves had little experience with human babies let alone childbirth. She went into the other room and saw Caesar eating fruit that Alisa had brought him.

Alisa looked more pregnant but still had a ways to go before birthing her own baby. Caesar doted on her and Caroline smiled wistfully. She missed Will so much since he'd died but even more so as the reality of having a living reminder of him hit her harder. She wished so much he could be here with her to meet his son or daughter. But he'd been gone for nearly nine months now.

Caesar gestured at her to come closer to where he sat near his bag and then he reached to pull something out of it.

"What," she signed and he pulled out what looked like a locket attached to a chain.

Her eyes widened when she saw it.

"How? Where?"

After all, it had been in Will's possession because she had given it to him to get the clasp fixed. He'd put it off but when she looked at it after Caesar gave it to her, she saw that he had done that.

Her throat tightened.

She knew it would have been one of his final acts in his life. He'd done it before the world around them had gone crazy. She opened it up and saw the photo of Charles and Will together back when Will had been a little boy. Another older dark haired boy that she knew to have been his older brother who had died sat next to Will.

The other was the three of them, Will, her and Caesar back when he'd been younger. It'd been like a family portrait. She started to hand it back to him.

"No…"

She blinked her eyes at his guttural speech.

"You…"

She shouldn't be surprise she supposed but she guessed he felt more comfortable signing than speaking.

"Yours…"

Meaning that the locket was for her to keep, as it had been before all this had happened… So she undid the clasp and put it around her neck where it belonged. She fingered it, her eyes stinging from unshed tears for the past and sighed "thank you" to Caesar.

She had gotten another piece of her life back.


	51. Chapter 51

Landon had enough. He had thrown his lot in with Jacobs and the other scientists but they had turned out to be a bunch of wimps. Cowed by a virus that had killed off most of the human race and the rise up of an inferior species…every time he thought about it, it filled him with disgust.

When the virus had first struck a blow to the population of San Francisco, Landon had waited for it to infect him. Everyone around him died. His few zoo keepers stopped coming to work and then he noticed that the houses around him fell silent. Lights were left on indefinitely, cars were left inside garages or the houses themselves looked like they'd been abandoned. Landon wasn't the most sociable of neighbors and had little to do with those around him after he'd lost his wife. She'd been the glue that had kept the family together. Only his son, Dodge had stuck around after it became time to go out on his own.

But he hadn't known about his son's sadistic streak. Yes, he wanted Dodge to be strong enough of a man to keep the apes in line but he hadn't been smart enough to keep his weakness under wraps.

He didn't say this when Dodge visited him in his dreams or during his waking hours as well. He knew enough about his sanity that Dodge had been killed by Caesar and was lying in a grave back in San Francisco which still awaited its marker. Oh, he'd ordered and paid for it but the city had shut itself down forever before it could be delivered and installed.

It'd been so crazy those last few weeks when humanity still had the upper hand and some semblance of control. Stores had filled up at first including pharmacies as one sure fire cure after another was stumped on the radio and television. The internet promised that if you clicked this link, you'd be cured of the new virus.

Nothing worked of course and it killed almost everyone it touched. It maimed and permanently diminished the capacities of other and yet some…like him were not affected at all. Jacobs' scientists explained the principles of genetic variation and natural selection as if he were a five year old but Landon had been out in the wild often enough to see both in action.

He knew that for whatever reason he was simply immune to it. Jacobs perhaps too but some of his scientists fell in the permanently maimed group. Holding onto the semblance of their cognizant abilities just long enough to come up with the latest viral agent…then they could die or go mad for all he cared.

As for himself, he just wanted to live long enough to find the ape who led the revolution, who killed his son so he could return the favor. Better yet to kill one of Caesar's own progeny but he knew it was imperative that he not live long enough to reproduce. Because if he could pass along the viral mutations to his offspring…humanity was as good as subservient to the apes forever…

Jacobs walked up to him.

"I think we'll be within range of a colony of apes to try out the virus," he said, "In a day or so."

Landon nodded grimly. He couldn't wait for that day to come, that moment to arrive to start turning the tables and then the tide against Caesar and his ape army.

"We don't know how it'll disperse over a larger area or the impact of winds shifts and velocities…terrain…"

Landon just waved his hand.

"It'll work. It's got to work," he said, "This might be our last stand. All the cities have fallen, the towns…all that's left of us is bands of survivors."

Jacobs sighed.

"This won't bring the dead back."

Landon knew that most of all, it wouldn't restore his son's life.

"It doesn't have to," he said, "If the apes don't grow in intelligence and numbers then humanity will renew itself."

They kept hiking through the forest which today was shrouded by low clouds. It seemed eerie considering how far inland they were on the continent.

The forest itself had grown so quiet, absent even the sounds of birds or small animals.

Burke looked through his binoculars at the ape encampment. He saw the different types of them working industrially but no signs of any humans. He thought he spotted the one who must be Caesar but he wasn't sure. One large ape with a jagged scar on his face did stand out and if not in charge, he seemed to inspire fear in the others. Still he kept looking, for any signs of Caroline. She was pretty close to her due date and he didn't know if she'd given birth yet and if so, in what circumstances. Had she and the baby survived?

He wanted to find out and as Glen and Ruth walked behind him, he wished more of the other humans had stayed behind. There were a couple of the younger men who were willing though inexperienced. The new world hadn't left too many experienced tacticians and warriors behind. They'd died off just like everyone else and others among them, probably killed in quashing the ape rebellion. After all, Caroline had told him how Caesar had directed an attack against an armed cadre of soldiers and the apes had slaughtered them in a matter of minutes.

"I don't see here anywhere."

Ruth looked through the brush with the binoculars.

"Maybe they're keeping her inside," she said, "especially if the baby's been born."

"How do we know they haven't killed it and her?"

Ruth rubbed her forehead.

"If she's tied to Caesar, lived with him growing up then he probably won't let the others do that. She's also a vet and that makes her invaluable to them…they don't have the medical knowledge yet to treat their own illnesses and injuries."

Burke thought she had an excellent point. Caroline with her experience with apes was hardly expendable to them. That alone might be enough to keep her alive…and her baby long enough so that he and the others could go in and rescue them.

"She'll be fine…she's made it this far."

"I'll feel better when she's out of there."

Ruth smiled.

"You really care about her don't you?"

He paused and nodded. It'd been like that since he first met her and she'd joined them using her veterinary medicine skills to treat humans…until she fell so ill herself. She'd had a different virus, a bad bout of the human flu and being rundown and as it turned out pregnant, she'd nearly succumbed to it. The others had wanted to leave her behind because she slowed them down but Burke refused and he bullied them into taking her with them.

But he'd taken care of her mostly by himself and she'd recovered. He'd lost everyone close to him even before the virus took the people who were left. It became imperative that he not lose her too. Even when she'd told him about the pregnancy, it just made him more determined. He didn't know why but he knew his place was with her and her baby.

Suddenly he saw some movement outside and there she was.

Caroline walked outside, her eyes squinting at the sun which she hadn't seen in a few days. Caesar and Alisa ambled beside her. The ape known as Kobas glared at her and Caesar signed back at him. She saw the other apes working, gathering food and water, materials for shelter. Other humans were doing the harder work around her. She rested a hand on her abdomen feeling that if she didn't have her baby soon, she'd burst. Caesar had been fascinated with her pregnancy as she knew he'd been with Alisa's. She'd received plenty of food to eat and a good place to sleep and during her days, she tended to the medical needs of the apes.

After they stopped harvesting the poisonous plants and berries, no more of them got sick. They were so far away from the natural habitat they'd never seen so finding edible foods that wouldn't kill them wasn't greatly aided by instinct. They had to educate themselves in other ways but now had the intelligence to do that.

Will had to drill that into Caesar when he'd been little. He had tried to eat strange things he picked up just like a child might and had a couple close calls. Something he wouldn't be able to do for their child. She didn't know how she'd raise her baby without him, in a world so radically changed. She'd knew she had to find a way for them both to survive.

Caesar ambled over to her and took her hand in his own. She followed him to where a young orangutan had cut its hand on a piece of sharp metal that must have sheared off of something. She started to look at it while Caesar watched.

"You fix?"

She nodded back at him.

"Bandages need."

He sent one of the younger chimpanzees to retrieve them. The cut wasn't bad but had to be cleaned out and maybe stitched. She would have to go inside and do it so she signed at the orangutan to follow her. It looked at Caesar and he nodded so it followed her into the compound.

Caesar stayed behind and looked around and then suddenly he heard Kobas bellow and frantically sign that he'd seen something.

"Human."


	52. Chapter 52

She felt the baby kick again and she wished Will was there with her but he was long dead now…the many months that had passed felt like years. Her memory of their life together back when there'd been a vibrant San Francisco still remained but it grew dimmer.

Caesar had her working with tending to the last of the apes made sick by what they thought was nutritious fruit. She'd signed to him that they needed to learn to differentiate between what was edible and what wasn't as they were thousands of miles removed from their native habitats…which were in different corners of the world.

There'd been a close call the other day when Kobas had thought he'd spotted a human in the brush and had signed back. She knew he hadn't been wrong…she had looked in the same spot and had seen what looked like Burke…and maybe someone else. They just stood there blending in with the trees and other plants because Burke certainly had learned to do that in the military and then later as a mercenary. That must mean that he had been doing surveillance before coming up with a plan to spring her from the compound.

Damn she didn't want him to do that…to risk getting himself killed. She knew that he didn't view life in the new world like she did…where as she saw hope for a future including for the dwindling numbers of people. He only remembered what he'd lost in the path yet he'd been one of the people who'd helped give her help…without him she might not have survived after the others had left her. Her or her baby…but he didn't know that she didn't feel endangered by staying with Caesar.

The opposite…she felt as safe with him as anywhere else and she felt closer to Will. It sounded crazy but Caesar was what brought them together and she'd fallen in love with the both of them. It hadn't been the apes who'd killed him after all…but the humans who hunted them including Caesar.

Caesar walked up to her to see how she'd treated some of the younger chimpanzees who were still ill. She signed to him again about the need to find safe ways to check what was safe to eat and he nodded. They'd been raiding some encampments left behind by fleeing humans but some of that food had gone bad…except for a couple gardens with vegetables growing wild…at least for now.

She hadn't told him about seeing Burke and she wouldn't…but she worried about any attempts to rescue her endangering Caesar or the other apes…not to mention the humans who had stayed behind to try to rescue her. She imagined that Ruth and Glenn were nearby as well…and she put her hand on her swollen abdomen feeling as if it were about to burst…it couldn't be much longer could it?

Caesar had caught her involuntary movement and he put his own hand there…feeling for movement. Alisa hadn't yet grown with pregnancy enough for him to feel his own offspring move inside her…and he liked feeling the movement of Caroline's baby under his hand. He'd sign "baby now?"

She'd smile and sign back, no…not now.

When, he'd always sign back.

She'd sign, don't know. Soon. Caesar would look concerned then…she wondered what he thought about the fact that she'd be giving birth soon or what that meant. He'd seen videos of it on television and the computer as part of his education from Will including of other chimpanzees like himself.

Of course she didn't know how she'd handle it…she felt nervous more and more the closer the time came…because she wouldn't be in a clean hospital with doctors and nurses tending to her but out in a crude compound in the middle of a forest in a world that had changed so much since its conception. She fingered the locket around her neck that Caesar had returned to her although she didn't open it often to look at the photos except at night when the forest fell quiet again.

The three of them together and a photo of Will's father before he'd died. It brought tears to her eyes to see them and remember the past.

Caesar signed for him to follow her and check on Alisa who had been feeling a bit under the weather but Caroline figured it was the pregnancy. Alisa had grown to like her…hugging her when she came to look at her.

Occasionally she'd look out into the forest knowing that her friends watched and waited.

Landon looked around him in the quiet forest devoid of the sounds of birds and other animals. It'd been like that the past two days of traveling.

"It's downright creepy," he muttered to himself.

Jacobs just kept moving ahead of him with the remaining scientists. Two more had died on the way and Landon figured it was because they were the weakest of a spindly bunch of intellectuals who'd never faced the harsh reality of surviving. Jacobs explained it as the new virus making them sick enough to weaken so they'd die of other causes. What did it matter, Landon thought, dead was dead. They were in the same place as his own son.

"Maybe the plague's killing off animal species."

Landon didn't think that likely.

"Maybe they just know when to hide when the apes are around."

They kept walking in the unearthly quiet not having seen an ape in several days. Landon itched to snap the neck of one of them when he had the chance. With Jacobs keeping the containers of engineered virus on him at all times, it might have to come to that if they were attacked. These scientists didn't understand the decision that would have to be made between living and dying and the terms of either. Landon had every intention of living long enough to avenge the murder of his son but not of becoming a slave to the apes.

After Caesar died at his hands then he'd be fine with joining his son rather than scrambling for survival as one of the dwindling representatives of a species which had engineered its own extinction.

"We're almost ready to set up camp."

Jacobs had been saying that for over an hour but even he started to ramble. Landon didn't know if the virus that had wiped out most of humanity had weakened him. That would be poetic justice of course…at least it would be if Jacobs died after he was no longer useful.

But for now he needed the scientist alive if he was to kill Caesar and avenge his son's death.

Much later…

She had seen the shiny object in the sky fall to earth leaving a blazing trail of fire behind it. How could fire exist so high up in the sky…when it seemed born of the earth? They made fires at night only when they knew the others who hunted them were nowhere close. They would send the most agile of them climbing nimbly up the tallest of trees to survey the area looking for signs of the Hunters.

She had been one of them and she'd seen a small fire near the horizon that didn't look like that of the Hunters or the Hunted. It looked…different and it burned for two suns.

Then it had gone out and the air had still smelled of its presence. They talked about sending some of them to scout the area where the fire had fallen after lighting up the sky. Perhaps it was some powerful object that could help them fight the Hunters at last.

But she didn't know that…whatever had shone so brightly had dissipated and she felt safer among the tallest of trees. It would be more suns…more than she could count on her fingers until the Hunters returned. She stretched her lithe arms and felt the object around her neck rub her chest underneath her covering. Her fingers liked to caress it, the luster of it had faded and yet…she knew it held treasures. '

Someone had held her in their arms and told her the stories when she'd been just old enough to remember them. The necklace…she had never remembered not wearing it…keeping it close to her.

"Come…"

A male among them who wished to lead gestured for her to follow where they went to a canopy that they hung for shelter to decide what to do. Should they scout out the strange object or not risk it?

"The Hunters…find it…they find us."

She had spoken haltingly because speech didn't feel natural when her body could tell stories much better. Though others struggled with words and stringing them together more than she did…and she didn't understand why.

Then they heard loud yells in a nearby brush and a tree fall over…and they took to hiding in the shelter of the trees from what they thought might be the Hunters.

But it turned out to be something else entirely.


	53. Chapter 53

Another day passed and Burke grew even more impatient feeling that time was running out. He had kept an eye from his vantage point in the woods but had only seen a small cluster of apes, mostly orangutans who congregated near a crude shack that had been built by some of the human slaves. Burke figured it might be used to store food. Though it was possible it might become a haven for weapons.

He didn't know how much the apes had advanced when it came to weaponry but he knew it'd only be a matter of time…guns, explosives…even bombs including god forbid, nuclear weapons. The silos still marked the landscape of the new world even if there were no soldiers left to guard them. He knew enough that nuclear weapons couldn't be launched by reading a manual but no one knew, not Ruth or Glenn or any of the remaining scientists knew how intelligent these apes might prove to be or how much of that intelligence they might pass down to their offspring.

Caroline knew about Caesar once Will had told her the truth about him after his father had died. She'd been so apprehensive even at first when she hadn't believed him. She'd been more than upset when it'd sunk in that her nagging suspicions that Caesar hadn't been an ordinary chimpanzee like those she'd spent years studying had a basis. Her reaction then had been to accuse Will of playing God, of trying to change what wasn't meant to be changed…how it'd impact Caesar to be forced on the outside of what was normal…of being neither human but not exactly chimpanzee either. What would happen to him, she'd asked but the chimpanzee who'd been raised by humans had carved his own niche in this new reality.

He looked the part of a leader. Burke could see that just by watching him among the apes. They all deferred to him…though one of them, the one who bore a scarred face did so one step behind the others. Burke knew from his military background and life as a mercenary that Caesar would be foolish if he didn't keep a sharp eye on that one. But other than that Caesar held the apes of different subspecies together and though he forced the humans to work, he wasn't cruel to them and if he saw other apes engage in rough behavior, he put a stop to it.

Deference perhaps to the years he'd spent being raised by humans like a member of a family. But Burke didn't think it'd last…he knew that the more dominant the apes became, the more humans dead or weakened by the plague, the harsher life would get for the species dominated. He glanced over at Ruth who had been perusing one of the faded journals left behind by Will. The only way any of them besides Caroline knew of the man who'd changed the balance of power between man and ape without living long enough to realize it.

"This is very interesting…"

Burke caught something in her voice.

"What do you mean? What'd you find out?"

Ruth looked up at him soberly.

"I might have found the answer behind those antigens in Caroline's blood," she said, "They're actually antibodies."

Burke frowned.

"So how unusual is that? Don't all of us carry them in some form?"

Ruth nodded, conceding that but her face didn't soften in expression.

"I know that…but these are different…these are related to that virus that's wiped out most of the human population. She's immune to it…and she's been so for longer than it's been around."

Burke didn't understand what she was getting at…it didn't make any sense. But then he'd been a military grunt with some background in intelligence. His brother Taylor had been the scientist…maybe he'd grasp this information quickly and be able to use it if he were around…rather than lost in space somewhere.

"I don't understand…"

Ruth looked perplexed.

"I don't either…I thought the virus was new…but there's mention here in this journal that Caroline took ill about a year or so before the virus surface…very sick. Will wrote about being worried that he might lose her…of trying to tell Caesar why nothing could be done for her."

Burke digested that. He'd figured that the young man had loved Caroline as much as he could considering how obsessed he'd been with his research on apes. Caesar hadn't been his pet…but he'd not been his child only either…he'd been a research project.

"She survived though…and she didn't get sick."

Ruth nodded.

"Maybe she was exposed to a similar virus," Ruth said, "She worked in a zoo with primates in San Francisco right?"

He nodded back.

"So how did she survive," he said, pausing and then it dawned on him, "What did Will do…he did something right…and it had to do with Caesar…"

After all, Will had experimented on his own father giving him doses of what had been called 112, the precursor to its stronger, less stable cousin. He'd seen references to 113 in the journals and how Will had learned from his boss, a corporate suit named Jacobs that one of the laboratory workers had died not long after being exposed to it in the lab.

"This 113 was designed to resist the human immune system," Ruth said, "to do what the earlier virus couldn't do which was enhance brain tissue growth without reversal."

Burke knew now what a double edged sword that had turned out to be but had Will had any hint? Caroline might have but she'd loved the man. She still did even though she had accepted his death…that she'd be raising their child without him.

He felt restless during moments like this…eager to go in and get her out of there…to bring her to safety so they could all leave and just hole up somewhere to keep alive…keep the baby alive until humanity could regain its strength to take the world back.

"We have to move soon…before she has her baby."

Ruth sighed.

"Not likely she's due any day now," she said, "She might have even had her baby by now."

Burke considered that as his mind returned to working on a plan…

Caroline patted her abdomen which felt like it'd burst. She hadn't felt any pains or signs of labor but she knew first babies might decide to arrive past schedule on their own calendar. Caesar kept her busy tending to those among the apes who needed her including two young chimpanzees that were found without parents.

She'd explained through signing and example how they might nurse them back to health and Alisa in particular had been very eager to take part…perhaps as practice for when her and Caesar's first offspring would be born.

Caesar marveled at Alisa's devotion to the apes. Caroline knew that he cared deeply for her…not in the same way that he had for Cornelia. He'd grieved her death and he'd been angry…enraged at Will's role in it…even though it hadn't been intentional. Would he ever understand why Will had tried to kill him…when he thought Caesar had killed someone?

She knew he loved Will, the man who raised him and always would…but his loyalty was to the apes he led.

"They sleep need?"

She nodded.

"More sleep now…grow big."

Caesar nodded and signed to Alisa who picked up the smaller ape and cradled it in her arms, almost as if she were rocking it. Caroline just watched her, feeling a mixture of emotions. She knew that if she were lucky enough, soon enough she'd have her own baby to hold in her arms, cradle against her so she could tell him or her that no matter what, it'd survive in the new world. She felt the locket around her neck and knew that Caesar had given it to her to allow her to hold onto a piece of Will. A promise to her that she and their child would be safe from harm…as long as they lived…but she missed the humans. Burke, Ruth and Glenn, she knew she had to find her way back to them. She felt the dwindling numbers of her own kind keenly enough and that stirred her into wanting to find them.

The baby kicked her and she winced, rubbing her stomach to try to communicate it, to tell it that she was there, she would always be there. She couldn't bring Will back but she would raise their child no matter what.

Then she saw the scarred ape Kobas, the one she knew hated all humans. She knew that he'd been treated humanely by Will but that hadn't changed the fact that he'd been held captive and experimented on…the way he looked at her she knew if it weren't for Caesar…

Caesar was as kind as he was smart and as long as he ruled the apes might enslave humans but they wouldn't wipe them out in any form of genocide. But what happened if he lost his leadership…or when he died…what kind of leader would replace him?

Someone like him who'd lead from his example or someone…she felt a shiver pass through her like Kobas who'd just as soon wipe out any trace of humanity.

Caesar gestured to her to look at Alisa cradling the baby ape and she focused on the sight in front of her. The future would have to wait until it defined itself.

Landon wanted to throttle Jacobs not for the first time. Damn it, they needed to act now, to disperse the new virus on the population of apes they knew settled in the forest…to see if it worked on a large scale. Yes, it killed apes singularly but what would it do when released among larger numbers of them in an environment that wasn't tightly controlled?

His blood tingled at the thought of standing there and watching them expire in torturous fashion…including the one who'd taken the life of his son. He'd stand over Caesar as he writhed on the ground in the throes of death…maybe begging for mercy or deliverance from what was painful. Landon wouldn't give him any…after all had Caesar shown any towards Dodge?

No, he'd enjoy watching him die. But Jacobs kept control over the newly created virus like a vice and Landon didn't think the former CEO had the guts to do what needed to be done…to wipe out the apes before they truly had a chance to permanently cement themselves at the top of the food chain.

Landon knew he had to get control of the virus…even if he had to kill Jacobs to get it.


	54. Chapter 54

Caesar remembered back to what life had been like before the escape that he and the apes had launched from laboratories, sanctuaries and zoos across San Francisco to the redwoods of Muir Forest.

How they had climbed the tallest of trees and watched a city die. The humans had never brought back their machines or weaponry to end their freedom.

Instead they had all started to die. Noisily at first and then quiet fell over the city when there was hardly anyone left. He hadn't known of the few people who had lived…including Caroline and had fled the city. The few they had seen stumbling around were shadows of what they had been before the release of the plague.

He knew now that it had been what made the apes smarter overnight, that magical mist that had doomed the human race. But Will had brought it home from him from that lab where Caesar had been born and put it in the refrigerator. Caesar had just found it and somehow knew what to do with it.

It had started like a cold it seemed, something to be brushed aside as not serious which just meant it'd spread further. He'd sent scouts to the city earlier and there'd been televisions which showed men at podiums reassuring people that it was nothing but the common cold, or a particularly virulent strain of the flu.

Caesar imagined even those men were dead now. Killed by the plague or perhaps the riots that had followed as the tightly wound tiers of civilization collapsed and before people died, they spilled out into the streets protesting the lack of a vaccine or cure, lack of space in the hospitals or the cemeteries. They'd kill each other over the last can of spam or bottle of water and blood would flow in the streets until the rain washed it away.

No, man was the least civilized of all species as it turned out.

He walked over to where Caroline drank some of the juice that Maurice and other apes had found in a nearby camper that had been abandoned not too long ago. She told him it tasted good…juice had been a rarity in the past few months just like a lot of things would be when they hit their expiration dates. Nobody lived to make anything any longer. She asked Caesar if the apes would be up for the challenge. He'd nodded.

"Apes build…Man destroys."

He signed it and even spoke it in a harsh raspy voice which she marveled at given that chimpanzees and other apes lacked the proper vocal equipment to speak and yet somehow…Caesar managed to do just that.

She signed.

"Not always…"

"Man made ill…man die…"

She couldn't deny that and Caesar probably knew why and how the humans had all been dying off…except for a relatively small number who either seemed to be immune or who got sick and survived in a somewhat weaker state.

"Father why…?"

She ran a hand through her hair thinking of her answer. She struggled so much with the facts not wanting to remember Will that way. But there was no denying that.

"He wanted his own father…"

Meaning Charles who Caesar did know and loved…in a protective sense which was how he got into trouble in the first place winding up in the sanctuary. Will and she hadn't wanted to send him there but they had no choice…he was in a sense property or ward of the state. After all he'd been taken from a lab without permission.

"Father empty…"

She paused and then nodded. That was certainly true in a way. The disease that ultimately killed Charles had robbed him of his mind first then his soul. The 112 protocol had just bought him some time…but when it stopped working, it left Will even more desperate to try harder to reach his father.

"Caesar, Will loved his father like he loved you…it's about family," she said, "I spent a large part of life far away from family…half a world away and now the baby is my family."

Caesar put a hand on her swollen to the point of bursting abdomen.

"Baby…family…"

She smiled.

"Like your baby…"

Then a group of apes led by Rocket came running in gesturing outside and then Caesar heard a loud crashing noise.

Landon and Jacobs looked at each other carefully. Landon issuing a challenge and Jacobs more than a bit wary of trusting the man who only wanted to avenge his son's murder before his own death.

"We know it's safe on us," Landon said, "unlike the other virus you released on mankind."

Jacobs bristled.

"That wasn't our fault. How many times do I have to say that?"

Landon sighed.

"I'll never believe it and before we all started dying, there were going to be investigations. A congressional panel was going to be convened on whether or not 113 caused the plague."

Jacobs knew they had dodged a bullet with that one. The interrogations they had faced hadn't been pretty but they hadn't lasted long either before the people asking the questions started dying. Soon no one lived who had any memory…any suspicion tying him or his company to it.

"That's all in the past," he said, "We need to focus on surviving."

Landon just wanted to focus on revenge…for his dead son and didn't want this moron in his way.

"We need to make a stand then or we'll never survive…we'll be dead as a species or subservient to a bunch of stinking apes."

As he said those words, he saw the faint image of his son looking at him from behind Jacobs and he thought he might approve.

Much later...

The crash had knocked them all out…as it shredded the cramped world they knew around them as they'd slept.

One by one the three men picked themselves out of the wreckage of their craft in a daze. They'd been sleeping after all, a sleep where dreams remained just out of their reach and then suddenly they'd been here. Taylor winced as he pushed a piece of aluminum off of him and that's when he noticed the woman who'd slept in stasis next to him. Her casing had been breached, her glass covering cracked and she'd looked like a withered up corpse.

Why would that be, as if all the life energy had been sucked dry out of her by an unknown force.

"Hey Taylor…is that you?"

He grimaced again, feeling something dripping above his eye and looked over at Dodge who nursed a bleeding hand.

"Yeah…god what just happened?"

"We crashed…."

Taylor sighed, his eyes appraising the wreckage around him.

"Where's Landon?"

They heard something crash and then looked over to see the other astronaut struggling to his feet.

"What about Stewart?"

Taylor frowned at the both of them.

"She's dead…something happened to her that I can't explain…almost as if…"

Dodge had seen her withered body.

"My god…what the hell is going on here and where are we?"

The question of the hour, Taylor thought and one that needed answers.


	55. Chapter 55

The crashing noise had been a branch that had broken, when Kobas had gotten into an argument with Maurice again. The two squabbled often these days, the philosopher who like Caesar didn't want to annihilate the humans and Kobas who advocated all out genocide against their former oppressors.

Caesar knew that there the friction that existed within his charges had splintered off into fissures that could tear his attempts at revolution apart at the seams. The humans who had once controlled and dominated every living creature now caught in the middle. Caesar knew the roles had shifted between the two species but humans were there to do the work to make things easier for the apes. He fed and sheltered them even as they worked hard from sunrise to past sunset. In his world, they served a purpose and that kept them alive.

Kobas didn't give a damn, he just wanted them all dead, painfully if possible. Caesar understood why…he knew Kobas had never known freedom, living in one sterile cage as an experimental subject with a number assigned before moving onto the next. That had been his whole existence and he hadn't been raised with humans as a family member or even a pet on a leash. He'd just been a means to an end, the most recent being test subject number one for the revamped virus, 113. The one that Caesar had read about in the journals when he returned to Will's house after nearly all of San Francisco had died.

It'd been what he'd stolen from the refrigerator and dosed the other apes with to make them more like himself…to give him the evolutionary jump they needed to carry out his plans of liberation.

And it had worked.

But now it could rip apart at the still fragile seams before it really got started. He glanced over at Caroline who watched. She still worked helping to tend to injuries and to help with them eating the right foods in a land foreign to their kind. He knew that helped keep her alive…her and the baby that she had made with his surrogate father.

Kobas and Maurice separated but Caesar knew it wouldn't be for long. Kobas was a bonobo like Kara but couldn't be more different from her. He was angry, aggressive and resorted to violence rather than pacification as was the language among his kind…he'd been warped by what an endless line of humans in white coats and masks had done to him.

Maurice just looked at him.

"Kobas want dead…humans…"

Caesar nodded.

"All humans…"

"He angry…"

It was hard to put it in more words than that…or to even believe the anger would ever go away. It was all Kobas had, really except for some of his supporters.

Rocket joined them.

"More humans…come…"

Caesar furrowed his brow.

"You see…"

"Top highest trees…look down…walking…"

Caesar digested the news, not really surprised. Yes, the band of humans that Caroline had lived with had fled but others were roaming around in disorganized bands mostly dazed from shock of a world changed or the virus…but sooner or later they'd reorganize and try to take their world back. He knew that as much as Kobas did…humans were incapable of being willing to hold a lower position on the hierarchy of life on the planet. Even as their own numbers dwindled. He knew they'd have to deal with it but there had to be another way besides genocide.

Because if they did go that route, there'd be no turning back.

Caroline watched what happened and knew it was a power struggle not much different really than those at the zoo in the enclosures where great apes were on display. Only sign language hadn't been a form of communication then. Will had been the only one who'd tried it with an ape that she'd known when she first met him.

Her baby kicked and she knew her time was getting closer…she didn't want to think about him right now because she still missed him. Though he'd become part of the dead world, fading away each day. But his face including the last time she saw him still remained etched in her memory.

They'd been having a normal life until Caesar had left them but even though they felt a hole had been ripped inside them, the world had been familiar. After losing him she hadn't had time to mourn, she'd been left to take care of her friends and coworkers at the zoo who all died one by one in pools of blood with looks of pain and terror frozen on their faces.

Then she looked past Caesar at something he didn't see in the brush. A human poised to move quickly if necessary but content to watch.

Burke.

He hadn't forgotten her and her heart tightened. The sight of him…it made her feel relieved enough to cause her knees to nearly buckle to make her fall but she caught herself. She forced herself to look away from him so the apes wouldn't know.

She hoped he wouldn't risk his own life to free her. The other humans needed him and his skills, his bravery. But she missed him a lot more than she ever realized…the scent of his skin, the hardness of his body and its warmth when he held her close to him. He wasn't Will, no one could ever hold as dear a place as her baby's father but she trusted him with her life.

Maybe someday she'd trust him with her heart.

She turned around to head back into the compound, her steps feeling just a bit lighter.

Burke watched Caroline walk away from his vantage point. He felt his insides tug at him…she'd grown even more pregnant since he'd last seen her and he knew her baby would soon be born. He wanted her child to enter into a world that would keep it safe which meant getting her away from the apes.

He just didn't know quite how he planned to do that.


	56. Chapter 56

She remembered the day Will had told her the truth about Caesar. It'd been before his father died and she'd just stared at him in disbelief. It just sounded so incredible that science had found a way through pharmacology to increase the intelligence of another species even one so closely related to it.

Yeah she knew Caesar to be smarter than any other chimpanzee she'd seen in her experience as a primatologist. He knew sign language but that wasn't unheard of among his species and gorillas as well. He'd picked up things so quickly…skills including cognitive ones that seemed to be beyond the reach of most apes. But she'd never even imagined….

When she heard the truth she immediately found problems with it. She told him that it was wrong, gesturing at a wall plastered with calculations and theories that did little to illustrate the living and breathing ape she'd grown so close to the past several years.

"I know how much you want to help your father," she said, "but what about Caesar…he'll forever be caught between two worlds. He's not really a chimpanzee but he's not human either."

Will just didn't understand that his view of the world and how to shape its creatures just didn't fit reality.

That his attempts to engineer the evolution of a species could have unforeseen consequences. It'd been something that might have come between them but she loved him. She didn't want to see him hurt by his own ambitions.

The same ones that wound up killing him. Killing most of humanity for that matter. She just couldn't believe that his new virus had gotten loose…that the protocol hadn't been followed to the last detail. He hadn't lived long enough to fully see the consequences of his attempts to outsmart his father's dementia.

But he'd been a loving man, a loving father to Caesar and that time when she'd been so sick…with some god awful tropical disease she'd picked up from a new arrival at the zoo…she had memories of him sitting with her growing a beard and reddened eyes as she struggled to live.

Somehow she'd gotten better and she knew it'd shocked the doctors and after finding out what he'd done to his father sometimes she'd wondered…but maybe she'd just been lucky and her immune system just a bit stronger.

After all she was included in the minority of humans that hadn't been struck by the fatal virus which swept the globe.

She glanced over at Caesar who was asleep with Alisa curled in his arms inside the compound. He'd left the trees to stay late at night working with her and Kara. Kobas had been taking a group of apes with him to scout at night and she didn't trust him. She knew it was up to Caesar to figure out what to do with his own kind and didn't interfere.

Suddenly she felt some pains, just twinges really not labor. She rubbed her abdomen and thought about what it'd be like to deliver a baby in such an uncertain world. Caesar had promised that she and her baby would be safe with them. He hadn't made her work as hard as the other humans to earn their food and shelter. It made her feel uneasy because they viewed her with some resentment of being an obvious favorite of the species trying to dominate them.

But whatever it took to protect her baby, the one that would have lived a whole different life if this hadn't happened. She and Will would have raised it in the house where he'd grown up and maybe her own family who lived a half a world away could have visited or she, them. They hadn't connected in far too long, blaming distance.

After all her family had been proud of her. She'd educated herself in renowned institutions and had followed her dream of studying the great apes in Africa and then later in London and the United States. She knew they would have liked Will even though in phone calls they frowned on her for living with him and not being married.

But Will hadn't brought the subject up much until after his father died and she'd not felt ready to take that step yet. She hadn't known the world was about to change forever. It didn't matter now. He was dead and gone and she was about to have his child…his family line would continue onward as would hers when so many would die out.

Her child would be born and so would Caesar's as both humans and apes struggled to fit themselves in this new world.

Burke peered over Ruth's shoulder at the faded journal. They were back in the cabin with the makeshift lab doing more research. He had found the journals with Caroline's things and been reading them. But this particular one attracted his attention.

He didn't feel like reading about the life that she'd built with Will and how Caesar had been part of their family. He just couldn't warm to the idea of that…humans and apes sharing family ties. But then he'd read the part about her being seriously ill with symptoms that didn't seem much different than those manifested by the virus that decimated humanity.

I sit by her bed every day when the sun rises and when it sets, I'm there too. Caesar signs to me when come home and I have no answer. The doctors say there's no hope for her…her red blood cells are dropping with the platelets from the virus. It was isolated in one of the gorillas that had come from the mountains in Rwanda where a similar plague had wiped out a village.

I am losing my father day by day again, he's slipping away and more in a rage knowing fully what he's losing. I can't lose her.

I know what I have to do…

Burke could imagine that Will must have been desperate. Losing a woman like Caroline so vibrant and loving could undo any man. He'd found himself missing her more than he'd ever admit to anyone and Will had loved her for five years.

After all she'd gotten pregnant with his child before the plague hit. The child that would be born any day now.

Ruth sighed.

"I can't make out the rest…just what looks like a formula."

Burke read it and it made no sense to him at all. But it wasn't necessary because he knew what love in the face of desperation could do to a man, even one as consumed by his work as Will. He'd been there himself on the losing side.

But Will had won somehow because Caroline had lived so what happened? What had he done to change her fate?

"I know what it is…"

Ruth looked up at him.

"It's a cure…"

Much later…

The three men left the ship taking what supplies they could pack with them. What lay ahead of them and all around them looked like an endless desert. Sand packed hard as far as the eye could see all the way to the horizon under a single sun.

In the distance, Taylor thought he saw some hills. He flashed back to when he'd been a boy and out hiking in the mountains around where he grew up with his brother. He wondered whether Burke knew that his ship had likely gone missing. Would he ever see him again?

He looked out into the unfamiliar terrain barely broken up by scraps of vegetation that didn't inspire much confidence that the planet supported life. Landon caught up with him.

"Where the hell are we anyway?"

Taylor craned his forehead to look around them.

"I have no idea…I couldn't get a good reading on our coordinates."

Dodge shook his head.

"Too bad about Stewart," he said, "If her hypo-chamber hadn't been breached…but it still doesn't explain why she looked so damn old."

Taylor grimaced.

"She got desiccated…somehow…planet's probably dry as a bone."

Landon nodded.

"If we don't find water, we're not going to last long."

Taylor didn't need any reminding but he refused to just lie down and die. He'd never been one to give up or give an inch in his life.

That wouldn't change now. Somehow, someway they were going to survive and find a way to get back home to earth.

"Let's just keep on moving…we're bound to find water somewhere."

So the three of them trudged ahead through the sun waiting for the horizon ahead of them to change.


	57. Chapter 57

Dodge stood in the shadows barely formed once again. Landon squinted his eyes wondering if it were his imagination but then again, his son still spoke with him. He'd buried him months ago in a plot where he'd be worm food by now but not right now.

"You must find the beast and kill him," Dodge said, "The one who spoke."

Oh yeah, Landon had heard all about how Caesar had allegedly spoken one word over and over as if feeling out its power and Rodney had heard him say it.

Rodney had been no better than an idiot in his view. Good with the apes if too lenient but not really right in the head. Still he'd been adamant about what he'd heard from Caesar and this time Landon believed him.

"I'm trying but Jacobs is being an ass," he said, "Still thinks he's CEO of a God damn company. I wish he'd just died with the rest of them."

Dodge wavered in and out.

"No matter it's up to you father…Caesar can't outlive us. He can't outbreed us or we're dead forever."

Not much Landon could do about that as his only son had been brutally murdered. The whole world as he knew it was dying.

"Jacobs is to blame…he and his kind. If they hadn't come up with that damn virus thinking they could save humanity from some plague by creating another one."

He'd heard some rumor that the virus which tore around the planet had been intended to cure Alzheimer's disease. What a joke…cure it by killing off any future victims of it. He thought he'd pass on that one and people like Jacobs earning their cushy six figure salaries and fancy digs just to discover a new way to make people die.

"You've got the cure now," Dodge said, "Use it…avenge my death and all the others…"

Landon watched his son fade away once again and he glanced over where Jacobs sat with the other scientists then he fingered the switchblade inside his pocket.

Time to think about putting it to good use.

Caesar looked up at Kara, signing about what they had just seen.

"Humans…many?"

She shifted her position in the branches of the big tree where they both stood watch over the canvas that draped the bottom of the forest.

"Many no…left….remember?"

Caesar did when the apes first chased a bunch of them off. Caroline had been captured and now stayed with them. Separate from the other humans and away from Kobas who wanted them all dead and mutilated, their bodies strung in the branches of the trees as a warning to others.

He knew why Kobas hated so much…maybe if he hadn't had Will and Charles and Caroline…it could be him. Life in the sanctuary had taught him so much, many difficult lessons but it hadn't embittered him beyond mending.

Kobas would never mend, never change, never even soften his edges. It was getting tougher to rein him and his followers in, away from carrying out plans to murder the humans.

"Humans…hard work…"

Caesar looked up at her.

"Apes…slaves…humans masters…no more."

Humans would do the work that the apes wouldn't as part of the new order. They mustn't be able to rise ever again. Kobas disagreed, so much easier to kill them. A dead human couldn't lead an uprising any more than could a dead ape.

Caesar thought the humans too weakened at this point to do much of anything but serve apes. San Francisco, the people who flocked the streets everyday disappeared into their homes or overwhelmed hospitals to die drenched in their own blood.

Not everyone because Caroline had escaped. But she had signed to him about what it'd been like to watch a city die day by day and finally by each hour. All her coworkers had either stopped showing up for work or had died there.

By the time Caesar and the other scouts had roamed the trees above the deserted streets, the few carcasses of humans had been ripped apart by animals including a pack of wolves that might have once lived in a zoo.

He glanced down and saw some movement in the brush off in the distance and he knew it must be the man again.

But he kept quiet just watching him seeing what he'd do. He knew one word to the other apes and the man could be ripped apart by Kobas and his band in a couple minutes flat. Or…the man might be up to the challenge.

He looked like a leader even without followers.

Burke stayed low in the grass with Glenn and another man named Lucian who'd just joined up with him after stumbling into their encampment. He hadn't seen Caroline in a while and worried about her. Had she gone into labor yet, would the baby be born a prisoner? Ruth had said it would be any day now that she'd deliver ready or not into a world that might kill it before it drew its first breath.

Damn life had grown so precious and suddenly every life mattered…every human life. The apes, no they could just die but he'd thought a lot about Caroline and her unborn child. How much he wanted to whisk them away to someplace safe to grow up and just live. Not be content and maybe never happy enough but to ensure that humanity continue onward even as forces conspired to snuff it out.

"We move yet?"

Lucian looked to be impatient in his youth. He looked all of about 16 though he claimed to be 20. No drafting age to fight a war anymore, no need to lie but Lucian just looked in a rush to be a man. To live and die one.

But Burke shook his head.

"Wait on my signal…remain still until then."

Lucian just stared at him and Burke knew he'd been right to be concerned about him.

Caroline felt the baby kick and some twinges but nothing that screamed labor pains. She'd had trouble sleeping the past couple of nights and Caesar had tried to help her.

He'd been so protective of her and her unborn child. She wasn't sure about how the other apes felt about that. Alisa carried his own baby after all but she'd taken to nesting too.

She felt the baby move beneath her fingers and she knew alls she could do was wait.


	58. Chapter 58

Burke looked at Ruth and Glenn.

"We have to get her out of there. Now."

They were sitting back in one of the cabins eating some soup cooked by Burke from some leeks collected from the creek and a rabbit that had been killed by Norris one of the children whose parents had died when the plague seized hold of the population in North America.

"We can't risk her losing the baby," Ruth said, "She must be about ready to give birth. We need that baby to survive."

Burke sighed.

"So you can find out whether or not the immunity's passed on to the child," he said, "Caroline might be immune but the child's father was murdered before he had a chance to get sick."

He left the part out about Will's role in insuring the annihilation of the human race. Not to mention what was left of it being conquered by the apes who'd gotten much smarter.

Ruth frowned.

"I read the journals that he left so I know who he is and you're right there's no guarantee he would have survived the plague he started…but Caroline's immunity didn't come naturally. Wherever her parents are, they are almost certainly dead."

Burke didn't know much about her parents. People didn't talk much about the past histories of all of them that had been wiped out with most of humanity. He thought Caroline probably was born in India and her parents might be there…but that was on the other side of the world and no corner of it had been spared.

Millions even billions dead or dying.

"What do you mean?"

Ruth took a deep breath before exhaling it.

"I mean that she's got simian markers in that blood I took," she said, "and I found some passages in one of the journals about when she got herself a case of hemorrhagic fever."

"Like Ebola?"

Ruth shook her head.

"Not exactly…Ebola itself has different strands depending on country and time…Sudan, Zaire, Marburg and Reston…all distinct. She had an unknown strain."

"She nearly died from it?"

"Yes…and this plague bears many similarities to a hemorrhagic fever…bleeding from bodily orifices after starting out like the flu…Reston was airborne unlike the others but only infected monkeys to the point of illness."

"So she got sick…from her work?"

"Something about a shipment of gorillas that came in…one might have been infected."

"Why didn't she die then?"

Ruth paused as if thinking about it. Almost as if she hadn't believed it.

"She was given something stealth like probably by Will," she said, "and whatever it was, it seems to have come from Caesar the chimpanzee that he raised."

Burke felt taken aback by that news. Will had played God more than once with people's lives that he loved…including his father as depicted in another journal. He'd had Alzheimer's disease and through treating him with something developed in a lab, he'd reversed the symptoms until….they'd returned with a vengeance.

"So she's immune then…but what about the baby?"

"That remains to be seen…and Glenn and I were talking earlier about whether or not this immunity of any type can be passed forward…like the intelligence enhancement with the apes."

"Caesar…how did he get smart? Caroline mentioned Bright Eyes…his mother."

Ruth nodded.

"I saw her on 60 Minutes when they did the expose on the earliest days of that program…their intentions were good I guess but then it all went south when they tried to make their "cure" more resistant to the human immune system."

Burke knew that and that scientific experimentation was a double edged sword. It saved lives but also took them away. Particularly when scientists got it into their head that they were God.

"I just want her to be safe," he said, "Her and her baby…the rest will have to wait and see."

Ruth nodded.

"If it's safer for her to have the baby there…"

"How so? What if she has trouble…it's breech or worse?"

Ruth sighed.

"That's a reality in our new world Burke," she said, "Every woman's going to have to face that. All of us in so many ways…like we salvage for medications, antibiotics now but what when they all go bad? How will we learn all over to make them?"

Burke knew that applied to so many areas of what humanity had done or invented as part of its own evolution.

What would happen next?

Caroline bit her lip when she felt the pain seize her body. More like a cramp really and she'd been having more of them as her due date approached but she knew that it wasn't labor…at least not yet. Caesar seemed to sense when she felt pain and tried to comfort her. He liked to stroke her abdomen and she let him. Understanding that it was his way of connecting to the man who'd raised him, who'd saved his life.

Will should have seen this time when the child neither of them had anticipated would be born. It'd have traits from both of them including their parents and grandparents. Most of the baby's family tree gone now but she'd teach him or her about that past heritage. Stories of how her own parents met and about Will's own father's love of music. Her childhood spent in India and her educational years spent in England and later Africa where she first studied the great apes. She'd studied Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, and she'd spent time in both Rwanda and Tanzania.

She'd find a way to teach her baby about that life as she would Will's including the loss of his mother and the brother he'd idolized. His adoption and rearing of Caesar.

Caesar came up and signed.

"Baby now?"

She shook her head and signed back one day…one week, difficult to predict when the baby would decide it was time to appear. Alisa had signed to her perhaps curious about her own baby, that of her and Caesar still growing inside her.

Caroline knew that Caesar wanted to name the baby Cornelia.

"Your baby…after…soon."

Meaning that Alisa didn't have long to wait either…she knew Caesar felt excitement and nervousness about his own offspring's arrival.

She knew from Caesar's own example that it'd be just as smart as its parents. But what of her own baby, she had no idea. Whether it'd be healthy or grow sick and die from the plague that still swept the globe.

All she could do was hope in a world where that trait could be the next thing to be driven extinct.

Much, much later…

The woman brushed her long hair back and watched from where she crouched in a nearby tree. She clung to a branch but felt safe so far above the rest of the surrounding area. Around her others of her kind nested there as well, keeping watch on the outskirts of the rainforest while the gatherers in their group foraged for food.

The rains had brought a bumper crop of good foods, sweet juicy orbs and long slender green tubes that they cooked over fires with barely any smoke to alert any of the Hunters to their presence.

They had so many disappearances already. Once their own vanished often in the rustling of brush or the stomping of a horse's hooves, they were never seen again.

The Hunters were based far away she thought. Some of them had ventured to scout them out always carefully to be stealth and quiet.

They were much different in appearance than them. They were hairy, had protruding faces and were incredibly strong and fast. Agile to slide effortlessly through a field of tall grass barely parting it into waves.

They could climb trees too but not as well as she and her family. Right now, she had been watching a small cluster of them camping with the horses they rode nearby. Three figures dressed in green, their bodies barely exposed. She wondered how that felt on their skin for she had worn next to nothing all of her life.

So many questions she had about them that she dare not ask.

Away from the jungle, the three figures pored a map which lay in front of them. The smallest stabbed it with a hairy finger.

"I think that we should explore that area for artifacts right…here."

The other two gasped and one of them grew agitated.

"That place is forgiven…the Lawgiver has said…"

She shook her head in what appeared to be affection.

"Oh Cornelius whatever am I do with you…"


	59. Chapter 59

Burke tossed and turned on his cot underneath a blanket. The night had cooled somewhat but it had been a hot day, days maybe a week…he was losing all sense of time.

They all were…because when civilization had died so had the need to keep time by the clock rather than by the passage of the sun across the sky for days and the journey of the moon to track weeks and months.

He missed her more than he'd ever admit to anyone. All his life he'd hidden his real feelings after his family had disappointed him as much as he had done to them. He'd lived in the shadow of his brother Taylor who'd been missing now most likely dead for months now…lost somewhere in space in a universe measured only by infinity.

Now, he realized he'd missed Taylor…would give anything for him to be alive and with him but then maybe once again, his brother had been blessed and he'd been cursed.

To die quickly seemed the easier path to take than the struggle for survival among those unlucky enough to live. Yes, the plague had taken its lives painfully but quickly. In three days, most of its victims moved from an irritating sniffle, a tickle in the throat to bleeding out from every body opening.

But Caroline, she'd grown on him without him realizing it. From the time he saw her struggling to cross that bridge back near San Francisco and when she'd been so ill with what turned out to be the normal flu.

She nearly got left behind but he refused. She in turn had told him first about the baby she carried and then later its father. During a time when Will Rodman was hated more than just about any person could be who's legacy had been serving as the catalyst for the end of the human race. Not to mention the uprising of the apes.

He'd been among those who might have lynched Will or capped him in the head with his gun if he felt any mercy at all. But since then, through Caroline and the journals, he'd discovered that though flawed, Will had been a much more faceted person than he realized.

As consumed as he'd been in his science of trying to cure his father's illness, he'd loved his family. Charles, Caesar and Caroline.

The excerpts about when she'd nearly died from the hemorrhagic fever showed that clearly. He'd agonized that he'd lose her with only his father back when he'd been reborn smart had consoled him. An earlier journal detailed how he'd experimented on his own father, he'd done like with his girlfriend using Caesar as the means to do so or more directly his blood.

It had cured her and apparently it'd left her with immunity to this new plague too. Maybe that shared by the apes like Caesar who benefited from the same disease that killed mankind.

Ruth and Glenn wanted her baby to live to prove that humanity wasn't done yet but he wanted that baby to live for Caroline as it remained the last vestige of the man she deeply loved. He had to find a way to get her out of there so that she and her baby would be safe and it'd have to be soon.

He heard a knock on the door. He walked closer and kept his hand on his gun. Never could be too careful these days.

"Who is it?"

"My name is Landon…you don't know me but I'm here to help you…"

Landon had slipped away from the camp in the dead of night when his son Doge . He'd left Jacobs and the others behind but he didn't leave empty handed. He had the means to wipe out the apes and restore his own species to the head of the evolutionary chain.

He planned to use it.

Caroline slept fitfully dreaming of the past. When she, Will and Charles had taken Caesar to the Muir Woods Park where he climbed up the highest Redwoods with the ease of his kind. Able to see for miles around him including the city and its network of large bridges including the Golden Gate.

The pathway towards their liberation as it turned out and mankind's first stand against them. She and Will had driven quickly to the bridge when she deduced that the apes would use it to head to the woods to seek sanctuary. They weren't out to kill people or take over then, they just wanted to escape their captive lives and experience freedom.

She'd gone with Will to the woods to find Caesar not knowing that armed forces had followed them. It had gotten Will killed but Caesar and his apes had made short work out of the armed commandos. Most of the bodies weren't recovered intact.

Life had been simpler when it didn't turn into a struggle to make it through each day. She'd nursed so many of her former coworkers and friends at the zoo, the ones who had gotten sick one after the other. The hospitals had been crammed full of patients, too overwhelmed and 911 had broken down so quickly.

Then came the riots.

She woke up and saw that Caesar and Alisa were signing each other. She made "baby" signs and Caroline couldn't tell whether it meant human or simian. Caesar seemed to be excited about both. She fingered the locket around her neck watching them. They were like an old married couple…like she and Will had been even without being married.

Will would have liked to see both his child and his surrogate grandchild being born. Yet he'd been robbed of that.

She rested her hand on her abdomen feeling the baby move though it'd been less active since preparing for birth. God, she had no idea how to handle that in this new world where hospitals no longer existed and doctors were scarce let alone those who'd delivered babies.

It just had to be presenting normally or she and it might die. No room for error these days. No team of medics to rush in and save them both. As it looked like right now, she'd have apes as midwives which she supposed in a way was fitting given Will's role in their creation.

But that didn't make her any less scared and yet determined at the same time that both would survive.


	60. Chapter 60

Burke just looked at Landon standing outside the cabin. The older man looked disheveled and indignant.

"Aren't you going to let me inside?"

Burke stood there on the balls of his feet ready to spring into action because he had heard stories about a man named Landon from Caroline. He'd headed a sanctuary for primates but she and Will had been concerned about the treatment of Caesar when he'd been sent there by the state authorities.

"Why are you here?"

"To talk to you…my son, he died you see and the apes were the cause."

Burke folded his arms.

"How did your son die?"

Landon paused.

"I'd feel better telling you inside," he said, "I don't feel like coming all this way to be picked off by one of them."

Meaning the apes who had seized control of society while mankind retreated.

"Okay…but if you make any sudden moves…"

Landon stuck up his hands.

"I'm in no position to challenge you in any way," he said, "The only weapon I have is against the apes."

"What kind of weapon?"

He'd stepped aside so that Landon could come inside the cabin.

"I can't say yet but it's definitive in its results," Landon said, "It will kill all of them including the one who murdered my son. The one called Caesar."

Burke's eyes widened. Yes, this must be the Landon that Caroline had described with such derision. His son had died from Caesar but Caroline believed it had been in self-defense since Dodge the son was a known sadist with the apes.

"Who made this weapon?"

Landon smiled without mirth.

"I will tell you that…if you will help me by telling me where to find Caesar."

Burke tilted his face.

"How do you know I even have heard of him?"

Landon chuckled this time.

"Because you lived with a woman named Caroline who's missing now," he said, "She was with Will Rodman when they brought Caesar to my sanctuary."

Burke sighed.

"Caroline is being held by the apes," he said, "and we have to be very careful how we handle it…how we get her back."

"You should just kill them all in one blow. Even if it means sacrificing some of us."

Burke shook his head.

"I won't sell her out like that or in any way," he said, "You'd better not think about doing anything that endangers her."

Landon whistled.

"You care that much about her?"

"I do…and she's pregnant, about to deliver any day now so we're not doing anything to endanger either one of them."

Landon looked at him with obvious distaste.

"Even if Caesar gets away with all he's done…him and his followers. Caroline and her boyfriend were too soft on him…treating him like a human child."

"I know they raised him and they cared very much about him."

Landon spat.

"For what…and at the expense of the human race," he said, "Treasonists…at least the scientist got what's coming to him."

Burke had heard enough.

"Get out of here. And remember what I said, if you do anything to put Caroline and her baby in harm's way…You won't have to worry about the apes."

Landon shook his head.

"You think you're a bigger threat than they are to humanity," he said, "I think you overestimate yourself. We should be on the same side…all of us."

Burke wasn't moved.

"Not if you're willing to sacrifice innocent people…"

"As if none of those haven't died already from the virus that Rodman concocted," Landon said, "You need to figure out what's really going on here."

"Figured out enough to know that I'm not going to be helping you…now you best leave."

Landon grumbled but didn't argue with him.

"You're going to be sorry that you didn't stop him when you had the chance."

Burke closed the door after him.

Caroline woke up and her hand moved towards her abdomen. Caesar sat nearby with Alisa asleep against him. His hand stroking her fur.

Somehow he'd grown to love her and take her as his mate. Even after the death of Cornelia on the bridge.

She often wondered what life would have been like if Will hadn't been killed in the forest. But then there's no guarantee he would have survived the plague. So many had die from it, leaving very few people left, many of them never the same after being infected.

Finding a comfortable position to sleep in was getting tougher and her nights had grown more fitful not to mention that she was having dreams about the past.

Dreams of her and Will…and Caesar out exploring the Muir Woods…watching Caesar scampering off before climbing nimbly up the tallest of trees.

Tensions were growing between Caesar and his immediate followers like Alisa, Kara, Rocket and Maurice while others stuck close to Kobas who wanted to kill off all the humans on sight. Every time he saw one performing labor for the apes in their compound he'd wanted to rip them apart.

Just to watch them die would give him pleasure. Caesar understood that resentment because Kobas had lived only in cages from the time he'd been born and separated from his mother. He'd never known a day of freedom until he'd been liberated from the laboratory where Will had worked.

It was all Caesar could do to keep Kobas from harming any of their captives. And he had a feeling already that one day he would be too late.

Much much later…

Taylor trekked through the desert with Landon and Dodge a couple steps behind them. They climbed massive boulders that sat there almost as they'd been dropped from the sky and they saw some bleached out bones of some large animal.

"What was it?"

Taylor looked at Landon with a shrug.

"Can't tell…almost looks like a horse or something similar."

They kept traveling…but they found nothing to eat or drink and the sun baked them, cracking their skin after turning it red and drying out their throats so they could barely swallow.

"We've got to find water…and fast."

Dodge was right and Taylor knew it. But there was none in sight. Just more and more desert all around them.

There seemed to be only certain death staring them in the face.


	61. Chapter 61

In the past…

It had been six months before everything changed.

Burke looked up at his older brother dressed in his old uniform of faded jeans and a leather jacket. His hair shaved close to his head. He'd always favored that style while in the Air Force and during most of his time with NASA.

"I'm leaving in a month to finish my training before the launch."

Burke folded his arms while staring at him.

"Why should I give a damn? You don't respect my life why should I care about yours?"

He'd chosen the less honorable path of being a well-paid mercenary who'd used his military training to be a soldier for hire. After months away fighting some guerilla war in Southern Mexico he'd returned to the announcement that Taylor would be flying to Mars. A party would be held in his honor at the convention center in town the night before he headed to Houston.

Once again, his brother played the hero and he sat in the audience with the adoring crowd. He didn't feel the sting of pain anymore but that didn't mean it never grated him.

Taylor just looked at him.

"I'll be gone for two years…at least," he said, "It's to Mars…"

"Yeah I know….I read the papers. The whole town's celebrating your feats. I've got a job to get ready to take."

He knew his brother didn't approve.

"You're off to fight another man's war?"

"Damn straight…the money's good…they need someone to train their men to organize and fight better. I've put Uncle Sam's training to good use."

Taylor looked stern.

"You've squandered it to make a fast buck."

Burke folded his arms.

"So I did…so what," he said, "Not everyone can be an astronaut…"

His brother sighed.

"No one expects you to be one. Dad and Mom are worried about you and I won't be here to look out for you."

That grated on Burke.

"Look out for me? When you done that bro? I've taken care of myself since I'd been a kid with no help from you…and I don't need it now."

Taylor shook his head at him.

"Stop being so damn selfish…"

Burke pointed a finger at him.

"No you stop being so damn self-righteous," he said, "get the fuck out of here, your party's waiting…"

He walked out of the room and never saw his brother again.

Present…

He looked across the forest hoping that Landon hadn't followed him. He knew he had to get in the compound because Caroline would be having her baby soon. Ruth had told him it'd been within days or hours.

If she had her baby there, would she and it survive? The brush surrounding him limited his view of where many of the apes clustered. She must be inside somewhere. Maybe the leader named Caesar was keeping her safe. He wasn't the biggest of the apes or the most fearsome looking one, but he knew that he was the alpha of them all in terms of intelligence

The big scarred chimpanzee loomed large among a group of them set apart and he knew enough from a life of fighting wars to know that Caesar's hold over the apes might be showing some cracks, it could only be tenuous at best.

He might wake up one morning to find the other sect of apes taking over the leadership position and he'd be stuck trying to get it back. Generals rose but then they inevitably fell. Often caught off guard the moment they got complacent.

One step closer and he'd be behind the largest tree. He looked up and saw the sentries in the trees looking throughout the forest.

He'd have to figure out a way to slip past them.

Earlier…

They got out of the car after taking Caesar for his weekly jaunt in the Muir Woods. He'd taken off as soon as he'd been unleashed and climbed nimbly up the tallest trees. After a few seconds, he was up past the layer of mist that often cloaked the trees early in the mornings.

Caroline and Will watched him. Then they went over to sit beneath their favorite tree where they often fell into each other's arms, in that comfortable way they had after having been together for two years. They'd broached marriage several times but it never went far. She grew up in a traditional upper caste family in India and he had been raised by Charles in the same house they both lived in now.

"He's really enjoying himself isn't he?"

Will squeezed her closer to him.

"He's always happiest out here in the forest. As if he knows it comes closest to where he came from."

Bright Eyes his mother had been captured by poachers in African and then sold through a couple of middlemen before winding up in the lab where Will had worked. Caesar had no memories of his mama and had just started signing, "mama where?"

Will couldn't answer that question yet. He hadn't found a way to put the answer into words or images and then into signs.

"He's like a son to you isn't he?"

Will looked at her furrowing his brow.

"He's a chimpanzee."

She nodded, smiling, pushing a tendril of hair out of her face.

"I know…but he's not a pet is he? He's your child in a sense…for a while at least."

He knew what she was going to say. The oft repeated conversation that Caesar would mature into an adult soon enough and he'd change into an unpredictable and potentially violent creature. He didn't like to think about that much.

Not at moments like these where everything seemed in harmony.

"You want to have children?"

She just looked at him.

"You mean…our children?"

He'd never really broached that subject before. After all, they weren't married but he looked earnest so she rolled over on her side to look at him as he looked at her.

"Yeah I do…which would mean…"

She sighed.

"Will…you know how I feel about marriage…"

He stroked her arm.

"I'd like to talk about that some more," he said, "over Chinese tonight."

She paused and then nodded.

"We can talk but…"

Right then they heard Caesar approach with such exuberance they forgot about it and soon enough, Caesar and his surrogate father were rolling on the ground rough housing.

Present

Caroline felt the first pains and ignored them at first. She winced but figured it was more Braxton hicks type and tried to lie back underneath the blanket. For a while now, she'd been hit with twinges in her back and then cramping but it'd pass and not return for hours. She'd fall back asleep and would wake up in the morning and feel normal again. Fingering the locket around her neck, she closed her eyes to settle in for the rest of the night.

But then the next sharp pain hit and she knew she was in labor.


	62. Chapter 62

Past…

Caroline didn't know at first whether she'd gotten sick from some bad food she'd eaten or whether it was something else. She'd been sticking to canned food once all the produce either was eaten or rotted away in the bins of the markets and restaurants. Foraging for food in San Francisco wasn't too difficult if she avoided the dwindling mobs who had tried to burn the business district down or she ignored the growing stench of death within the city's boundaries.

It'd been bad even with the sea breezes that used to carry the hint of salt amid the briskness but now with bodies rotting in the streets…she had to cover her nose and mouth when she went out. The queasiness and the vomiting initially had been all the time and it hit her at unexpected moments when the stench was just overwhelming…like near hospitals or shopping malls, churches and near the marina where they had stashed bodies to be taken on boats out to sea to dump.

But with an entire city dying…and fewer people to dispose of bodies they had just piled up. She knew she had to get out of there before it worsened. Those who could still move, walked and even crawled out of San Francisco, even climbing over or under the roadblocks imposed during the attempted quarantine.

Keeping the virus in San Francisco had been futile as it had likely slipped away through its airports and its trains to other places including those faraway.

Caroline didn't know much about that…after the newspapers stopped being published, the television stations stopped airing and the internet died. All she knew was what she could see or hear either on her own or from what people told her.

So she felt sick but then it centered mostly in the mornings as she got up from where she'd camped hidden away from the mobs and after two weeks in a row of it, she had to start facing reality. She and Will…they hadn't been planning on a family but after slipping inside a deserted pharmacy, she raided it of one thing in abundant supply.

Pregnancy tests.

All which were positive. She was going to have a baby in roughly seven months whether the world was ready for it or not. Whether she was ready or not…life had a way of going on even when you were waiting for it to stop. She'd tried to be more selective of her food after that but soon canned goods and a dwindling supply of packaged food.

She learned how to deal with disinfecting water and coping with her own aloneness until she found others. She thought about Will a lot and her friends and family…the past would live on in her baby. The future would write itself.

All she had right now was the present.

Present

The pain was bearable but she knew there were different stages of labor. She'd read about it when she'd camped out at a library and done some reading. She knew more about what chimpanzees faced when pregnant and giving birth…to how they reared their young than her own species. But she picked things up quickly.

The first stage would be the longest as her body prepared itself for birthing a baby that had begun as something much, much smaller. She felt the contractions in her lower abdomen and back and they were few and far apart.

Caesar noticed her wincing with a pain and ambled on over. He put his own hands on her abdomen and his eyes moved when he felt the contractions. He signed. "baby now".

She said "no baby coming."

Caesar grabbed her hands and pulled her into where he kept his own nest with Alisa and motioned for her to sit on it.

"More hours"

She didn't know if he understood that babies didn't birth quickly but over a period of hours of varying degrees of pain and involvement by the mother. Will hadn't taught his surrogate son much about reproduction, only rudimentary lessons before Caesar had been taken away from him. But she and Caesar had signed about it a lot in the past several weeks. He wanted so much to be there and help her when her baby…his surrogate brother or sister was born.

She smiled at his concern and to get her mind off of her own worries. She had thought a lot about giving birth in the new world…no doctors…no midwives human ones anyway and no pain killers. But women had been giving birth for millions of years in some stage of their evolution and the species still thrived.

Life still continued on. Another pain hit her and she winced. Caesar reacted by stroking her face with his fingers and she enjoyed his touch. It reminded her so much of Will…how much he would have wanted to be here and had been robbed of that chance.

But life still went on and at least Caesar was here to watch over her.

Burke paced as Ruth and Glen stood nearby. He'd seen Landon lurking in the brush mumbling to someone named Dodge…who he knew to be his son. Caesar had killed him but it'd been in self-defense according to Caroline and he believed her.

God he worried about her right now. He worried about a loose cannon like Landon running around and wondered what happened to the men who'd traveled with him. He hadn't seen any sign of them yet.

"I've got to get in there and find her," he said, "She's giving birth most likely and she's by herself."

Ruth sighed.

"She's with the apes and hopefully they know enough to help her."

Burke looked to see where a group of larger apes congregated around the one bearing the scarred face. He knew him to be a danger just by his stance and interactions with what looked to be a faction aligned with him. Burke had seen it before…a band of revolutionists fragmenting even before they'd won their battle for independence. Egos, dominance and the need to rule might exist among the apes like it had with humans given their closeness on the family tree.

All he cared about was finding Caroline and getting her out of there. So now he scanned the area looking for a weakness to exploit to get inside the compound so he could find her.

"I'm going in…"

Glen shook his head.

"It's too risky."

"I don't care…and I can handle it," he said, "I've been doing this for years.

Ruth sighed again.

"Just be careful…we'd hate to lose you."

"I will…"

He slipped away towards the area of the forest nearby where the trees proved thickest, keeping his eyes on the band of chimpanzees and bonobos he'd been watching.

After he reached that spot, he watched and waited for an opening.

Much, much later…

As the three astronauts trudged into the desert, Taylor couldn't see any signs of life at all. Not even cacti, tumbleweeds or any sign of plants. He'd glanced back at Landon and Dodge who were looking as incredulous as he did and just as dirty and dusty, the whiteness of their spacesuits coated with grime.

"There's nothing here…"

Taylor found himself thinking of the earth he'd left behind and the last conversation with his brother. He'd gone to space on the trip to Mars searching for adventure…he thought he might find it and then head back home a hero two years or so of travel down the line.

He didn't expect to crash land on a barren looking planet and wandering a moon-like landscape with the two surviving astronauts. They looked to him for leadership and he had no idea what to do.

They were as some might put it up a shit creek and he had no idea what to do next.


End file.
